Shadow of the Osprey (30 page)

W
allarie stared in awe at the swirling red eddy of dust twisting and turning in a tortured dance across the plains. He shifted his balance and rattled his spears as the dust devil plucked at the spindly dry trees in the distance. The powerful column of air swirled away, and the Darambal man recommenced his long trek south across the plains.

He trudged with his head down, his left arm hanging by his side, as useless as a dead limb on a coolabah tree. His wound caused each step to be dogged by a fevered vision: the dust devil had spoken to him across the desolate plains, and recounted the story about a spirit woman and a spirit man.

They had met and the spirit woman gave birth to a boy. But the ancient spirits of the Nerambura people had said this was not meant to be. The spirit woman was of the evil tribe who had come as black crows to pick out the eyes of the living, and the spirit woman lost the boy. Now he wandered far, searching for his spirit father who was a great warrior. But the spirit father was at war with the evil spirit of the night, and the time of reckoning was coming.

Shaking his head and muttering at the incomprehensible images in his mind, Wallarie continued to stumble under the sweeping azure skies above. When he looked up at the sun he froze, and began to tremble in his fear. His trembling turned his legs weak and he crumpled into the red earth. For above him the sun had turned black, and he knew it was his time to die.

Although the
Osprey
battled with unseasonable northerlies as she sailed north, Captain Mort was not concerned. That was until he noticed the dramatic drop in atmospheric pressure, indicated by the ship’s barometer.

Mort frowned and spread the nautical charts before him on a table in his cabin. He traced a line to the government settlement at Somerset and although it was within a day’s sailing, his considerable experience navigating in tropical waters told him that the storm somewhere off the
Osprey
’s bow would be a bad one.

Whilst poring over his charts he felt the ship slow. The wind had dropped ominously and the barque plunged sluggishly into the oily, ominous swell of the tropical sea. The
Osprey
was sailing on a course north to the island of New Guinea and navigating through the treacherous waters of the world’s largest coral reef. Mort was many despicable things, but one thing he could be commended for was his skill as a sailor. He had sailed the wild and cold waters of Bass Strait as a young man and had learned his trade under the best skippers who had ever sailed the treacherous southern seas. However, although Bass Strait during its worst storms may have had massive rolling waves and howling winds, it did not have the added peril of deadly coral reefs.

The jagged, mostly uncharted reefs had taken many ships to the bottom; passenger ships, freighters and bêche-de-mer schooners had gone down in the maze of coral shoals over the years. Such had been the toll on shipping and lives that Sir George Bowen, Governor of Queensland, had established the outpost of Somerset on the tip of Cape York Peninsula ten years earlier. The settlement was intended to provide a base from which rescue parties could retrieve shipwrecked sailors. It was established as a rival port to Singapore, strategically located to the Straits of Malacca.

But Sir George Bowen was not to realise his dream of a new Singapore. Within five years of the
Osprey
’s
captain contemplating the outpost as possible refuge, it would cease to exist as a settlement. Remote and besieged by both wilderness and hostile tribesmen, Somerset would be abandoned, to be reclaimed in time by nature and the tribesmen of the north.

Mort lay the metal dividers on the chart and pondered the plunge and roll of his ship. He could read the movements of his ship as a horseman understood the moods of his mount. But the approaching storm was not the only problem that he was contemplating.

There was the serious problem of the Baron’s men under the command of the American O’Flynn. He had not liked the man from the moment he had set eyes on him. There was something about the big American that disturbed him. It was not just in the man’s openly hostile manner but something intangible made him sense that the American was definitely a threat.

‘Cap’n?’ The first mate stood apprehensively in the open doorway to Mort’s cabin.

‘What is it Mister Sims?’ Mort asked irritably, as he resumed plotting a course for Somerset.

‘Mightn’t be much,’ Sims mumbled. ‘But something funny goin’ on off the portside bow. Thought you might like to have a look fer yerself.’

Mort abandoned his charts to follow his first mate onto the deck where a peculiar drama was unfolding off the bow of the
Osprey
. Under a purple-black sky, Mort peered across the oily seas, to watch two ships manoeuvring.

‘She looks like a Frenchy gun boat out of Noumea,’ the first mate speculated, ‘in an awful hurry to cut off that Chinee junk over there, off our starboard bow.’

Mort was inclined to agree. The French gun boat was little more than an armed ketch with an auxiliary steam engine. She was using both sail and steam to intercept the lumbering junk which looked as if she had seen a lot of rugged years at sea. Big sailing craft – with their high, raised sterns and peculiar, ribbed sails – were not an uncommon sight in Queensland waters. They often sailed south with their cargoes of Chinese miners and goods for the Asian workers in Queensland’s northern goldfields.

The curious spectators gathered on the
Osprey
could see the crew of the junk frantically rushing about on deck preparing to repel boarders. The match was an uneven one, as the French gun boat had the firepower to sit off at a safe distance and pulverise the Chinese junk into teak splinters.

But behind the French ship, came an even more deadly threat; boiling black clouds and roaring winds lashed the waters into huge, white-crested rolling waves. The storm was moving so fast that it would catch the French before they had time to manoeuvre for action.

Michael Duffy stood at the railing beside Luke Tracy. They had also surmised that the French gun boat was intending to intercept the junk. In the distance, they could see the white-jacketed French sailors man the deck gun with precise drill movements, while other sailors stood ready with carbines and cutlasses.

Mort ignored the unfolding drama and bawled orders to his crew to batten down hatches. As the crew galvanised into action, Michael noticed that the French boarding preparations had radically changed. The French captain was also anticipating a major battle with the Coral Sea’s fury. Already his crew had abandoned their stations and Michael too ordered his men below.

~

At first the
Osprey
seemed to be dead in the water. Then her sails flapped and the barque rose with her stern out of the water. The billowing sails cracked as the giant waves rolled under her.

The storm hit with its full fury. The ship rose and lurched violently sideways and as she rose on the crests – and pitched into the deep troughs – the bushmen felt as helpless as prisoners under a sentence of death. It was the beginning of a long and terrifying night for them.

‘What do you think that was all about up there?’ Luke asked in an attempt to take his mind off the storm. Michael shook his head. It was certainly a puzzling situation. Why would a French naval vessel want to intercept a Chinese junk in Queensland waters?

In the days they had been together on the
Osprey
the two men had formed a friendship based on their common link with America. They had talked about the places and people they had encountered on their travels in the American West.

Michael had hoped to draw out the American prospector’s particular interest in his sister Kate, and the opportunity had eventuated the previous evening when both men were alone on the upper deck of the
Osprey.

‘I get the impression,’ Michael had said casually, ‘that you got yourself into that scrap with that lawyer fellow over a matter concerning the honour of a young lady by the name of Kate O’Keefe.’

Luke did not reply immediately but gazed at the grey-green scrub that bordered white sandy beaches rising and falling off the port. Behind the beaches lay the relatively flat Cape country. ‘I suppose you could say that,’ he finally drawled, as he puffed on his pipe. The grey smoke swirled away on the gentle evening sea breeze.

‘Must be a pretty special lady for you to risk your life as you did,’ Michael noted. ‘That Darlington fellow could have killed you with his first shot.’

Luke fell for the carefully set trap. ‘She is worth the risk and more,’ he answered wistfully. ‘Not much else worth dying for in my life anymore.’

‘What about working for me,’ Michael reminded him. ‘You know there is a good chance that you could still get yourself killed. That would not be much good to the lady.’

‘The money you are paying makes the risk worthwhile,’ Luke replied sadly. ‘I figured that after the job is done I could use the money to grubstake me for a prospecting expedition for Kate. And maybe then she would see that I’m serious about settling down in one place when I came back.’

‘You fixing to ask the lady to marry you then?’ Michael asked carefully.

‘Something like that,’ he answered. But in his heart Luke felt that something had gone terribly wrong. Events had conspired to separate him from her in a way she would not understand. A man’s pride was something a woman did not understand, and the showdown with Darlington had been as inevitable as the sun rising each day.

Michael smiled and slapped Luke on the shoulder. ‘The lady could do worse than you Mister Tracy,’ he said with a chuckle.

~

On deck Mort fought the storm. No-one and nothing was about to take his ship from him. Chronically seasick bushmen huddled below the decks, where they cursed the ocean and all who sailed on her. The stench of their vomit made Michael feel decidedly queasy. He had travelled the Pacific before but never had he struck a storm of such intensity.

As he sat helplessly with his men he had a nagging thought about the stability of the bomb he had hidden at the ship’s stern with the expedition’s supplies. Horace had suggested that it be detonated off Somerset so that the
Osprey
’s lifeboats could be launched and rowed the short distance to the settlement.

Michael had formulated a plan to have all his men on the forward deck when the bomb went off. This would then give them the chance to get to the longboats, launch them, and row away from the sinking ship. His excuse to have his men assemble at the forward deck – as well as the barque’s crew – would be for a shooting competition. The Winchester rifles would be used to fire at empty barrels they would toss into the sea. He had also planned to have the Baron attend with Karl Straub which would also place them forward of the explosion.

While he had been below decks stowing the bomb, Michael had ferreted through the stores Karl Straub had brought aboard, and found a theodolite in a lined case. A further search revealed charts and tables used by surveyors. He also found engineering manuals on specifications for establishing port facilities and a map of New Guinea with points marked on it, all of which gave credibility to Horace Brown’s suspicions of an expedition to annex the southern side of the island.

A day out of Cooktown, the Baron confirmed the expedition’s mission, when he summoned Michael to a meeting with himself and Karl Straub. Michael was briefed on his role: to use his men as a security force for Karl Straub and himself when they landed on the New Guinea coast. The Baron did not elaborate any further on the mission. It was not necessary for Michael or his men to know the purpose of the surveying that would be done.

But Michael already knew. The Germans were out to seize New Guinea before the British Foreign Office could react. Once annexed, Bismarck would have a strategic port as a direct threat to one of Britain’s colonies – Queensland!

‘Any chance of giving notice boss?’ one of the bushmen groaned. ‘Think I’ve had enough.’ The bushman was the youngest of the men Michael had recruited. He had once served for a short time with the Native Mounted Police before resigning to go in search of gold on the Palmer. He was a pallid green under his tan and tried to make a joke of his request. But as a veteran of many wars Michael knew fear when he saw it.

‘Only if I can come with you,’ Michael replied with a reassuring grin to the young bushman who tried to return the grin, but suddenly doubled over and was violently sick.

‘You think we will get out of this?’ Luke asked quietly. Michael did not know how to answer him. The
Osprey
rolled and lunged at unnatural angles with her timbers creaking. It was as if the ship was groaning in protest at the unbearable fury of the storm. With each lurch, cursing bushmen were sent sprawling across the deck into each other. Some prayed quietly. Others simply sat stony faced and prepared themselves for the worst. Never had any of the bushmen felt as helpless as now. At least on land there was somewhere to escape. But at sea, in a ship being callously battered by nature, there was nowhere to run.

Lashed to the helm, Mort fought with the demons of the ocean for possession of his ship, as the great rolling waves of the Coral Sea crashed down on him. He responded with terrible oaths and curses against God. His body ached but he refused to relinquish control of the helm to any of the crew who tried to relieve him. Throughout the night he strained to listen, with fearful anticipation, for the terrible crunching shudder of the ship’s keel grinding down on a coral reef. He knew his tough little barque could weather the storm but the reefs were the real threat.

Below decks Michael sat out the night watching over his men. As he thought about his situation he could not help but see the irony of the fact that at this moment his life was in the hands of the man he knew he must soon kill.

~

In and out of his fever, Wallarie occasionally opened his eyes, to stare at the distant horizon. A black beetle was crawling slowly towards him as he lay on his side staring at the thin line between sky and earth. A big, black beetle come to eat his flesh, when he passed into the Dreaming forever.