The Silent Frontier
Read The Silent Frontier Online
Authors: Peter Watt
Peter Watt has spent time as a soldier, articled clerk, prawn trawler deckhand, builder’s labourer, pipe layer, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. He has lived and worked with Aborigines, Islanders, Vietnamese and Papua New Guineans and he speaks, reads and writes Vietnamese and Pidgin. He now lives at Finch Hatton in Queensland where he also works as one of the part time emergency ambulance drivers. Fine fishing and the vast open spaces of outback Queensland are his main interests in life.
Peter Watt can be contacted at
www.peterwatt.com
Also by Peter Watt
Cry of the Curlew
Shadow of the Osprey
Flight of the Eagle
To Chase the Storm
Papua
Eden
Excerpts from e-mails sent to Peter Watt since his first novel was published:
‘Keep up the wonderful writing – your books are so full of interest and hold the reader from the first page till the end. They are hard to put down. Just what a reader wants.’
‘. . . thank you for the hours of entertainment you have given me . . . ’
‘They are the most enjoyable books that I have read in a long time . . . I look forward to reading more of your books in the future.’
‘Novels on PNG are so rare . . . coming across
Papua
was a good thrill.’
‘Thanks for getting me interested in reading again.’
‘All your books are so powerful with detail of their period. Brilliant reading. Riveting.’
‘Keep up the great work . . . you are a credit to the writing world.’
‘I wanted more! . . . no superlative would be sufficient to describe your work.’
‘Your books are marketed here [UK] as being as good as Wilbur Smith . . . or your money back. They certainly live up to that billing. Keep writing!!’
‘I can honestly say in all my years of reading, your books have to be on my list of the best ever.’
‘Fabulous, wonderful, brilliant.’
‘Thanks for being one of those rare writers that has the gift to lose you in a different place and time, plus the added bonus of leaving the reader feeling as they have learnt something of the past and its people . . . Thanks for the escapism.’
‘Australia’s Wilbur Smith. Keep them coming.’
‘I must say in all honesty I have never read a novel that has so captivated my imagination and heart and sent my mind and emotions on such a rollercoaster ride!’
‘Gripping to the very end.’
‘Your storytelling seems to get better with every book.’
PETER
WATT
First published 2006 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney
Reprinted 2006
Copyright © Peter Watt 2006
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
National Library of Australia
cataloguing-in-publication data:
Watt, Peter, 1949–.
The silent frontier.
ISBN–13:978 1 4050 3710 5.
ISBN–10:1 24601 3710 5.
I. Title.
A823.3
Set in 13/16 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.
These electronic editions published in 2006 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
The Silent Frontier
Peter Watt
Adobe eReader format 978-1-74197-166-8
Online format 978-1-74197-769-1
EPUB format 978-1-74262-604-8
Macmillan Digital Australia
For my sister, Kerry, and her husband, Tyrone McKee.
With my love and gratitude to you both for being there.
PROLOGUE
Sunday, 3 December 1854
‘T
o arms! California Rangers to the front!’
Awakening from a deep sleep, ten-year-old Lachlan MacDonald heard the shouted order and opened his eyes slowly. He could barely focus on the canvas roof above his camp stretcher and heard his father curse in the semi-dark of the early morning.
Following the shouted order Lachlan heard a shot and recognised it as coming from a rifled musket. Fear and confusion overcame him as he lay on his back in the sweltering heat of the summer’s day on the goldfields of the Victorian colony of Ballarat.
‘Get up, Lachie,’ he heard his nineteen-year-old brother Tom shout at him from inside the tent the boy shared with his family. ‘The bloody red-coats are attacking on the Sabbath.’
Lachlan sat up and then tumbled from his bed to stand
uncertainly. His other brother, John, two years older than him, was holding their little sister, Phoebe, who was only five, in his arms. She was whimpering, torn from her sleep to the sudden crashing sound of a volley of musketry from a short distance away.
‘God almighty,’ Lachlan heard his father say. ‘It’s started. God have mercy on our souls. Thomas, get your brothers and sister out of here now. Run for the hills and hide in the bush until I come for you. Take this,’ Hugh added, tossing a heavy leather money belt to his oldest son. Make sure you take it with the kids.’
Tom quickly strapped the leather belt around his waist under his shirt. He knew it contained a small fortune in five-pound sterling coins resulting from his father’s sale of the profitable gold claim they had owned. The rest of the money they had made from the claim had been converted to paper currency and stored in a small tin, which his father was even now recovering from its hiding place under the earthen floor. The Scot was not a great believer in banks, which he saw as an extension of the detested English establishment.
While his father was recovering their savings, Lachlan could hear men cursing, shouting, crying out for help and even screaming out as the lead balls tore into yielding flesh on both sides of the palisade fence of crossed timbers. The Eureka stockade was under attack and Lachlan was confused why this should be so when the evening before his father had said they were safe on the Sabbath. If nothing else, his father had said, the British were a God-fearing nation and would respect Sunday as a day set aside for God.
‘Da,’ Thomas said, ‘John can take Phoebe and Lachie to the bush. I will stay with you.’
Hugh MacDonald, a powerfully built man with a distinctive Scottish brogue, grabbed his oldest boy by the shoulders.
‘Don’t argue, lad,’ he said, shaking his son. ‘Get them out of here. I said I will join you.’
Tom turned to look at his younger brothers and little sister staring back at him, their eyes wide with fear. ‘C’mon,’ he growled reluctantly. ‘Follow me and don’t get lost.’
Tom snatched up his little sister and placed her astride his shoulders once they were clear of the tent entrance. It was then that Lachlan saw what was taking place all around him. Men dressed in the dark blue of the goldfields police and soldiers in their red coats with the distinctive white strap between shoulder and waist were pouring into the fortified enclosure to clash hand to hand with the rebellious miners. Long bayonet against axe-like pike, revolver against musket. Lachlan looked over to where the great flagpole stood with its blue flag and silver southern cross emblem flapping gently in the first rays of the summer’s morn. He could see Lieutenant Ross, a Canadian miner who was said to have designed the flag of rebellion, fighting under it. Horses galloped all around them raising clouds of dust as Tom hauled his young charges after him towards the dimly lit outline of the tree-covered hills that lay to the west.
Tom placed his sister on the ground and swung around to glimpse back to where they had come from. ‘God, no,’ he whispered under his breath and turned quickly to John. ‘Keep going with your brother and sister. Don’t stop running until you get to the hill and hide in the trees until I come for you.’
John understood and took his sister’s hand to half-drag, half-trot with her towards the increasingly distinct ridge of trees. He did not look back, as he was afraid of what his older brother may have seen. Lachlan followed reluctantly.
Tom sprinted back to the tent, where he saw his father clutching a small tin box. He had been confronted by a
goldfields policeman who had a bayonet-tipped musket levelled at his chest.
‘You are my prisoner,’ the policeman snarled. ‘Yield in the Queen’s name, rebel.’
‘I’m not a bloody rebel, man,’ Hugh MacDonald shouted. ‘I just want to get out of here and join my family – so step aside.’
Tom had almost reached his father when a red-coated officer galloped up to the tent. The officer was wielding a sabre that caught the first rays of the sun along its silver blade as he waved it over his head. ‘Don’t argue, trooper,’ the officer shouted. ‘Kill the rebel.’
Hugh MacDonald was momentarily distracted by the arrival of the mounted officer and the police officer lunged forward to bury the pointed tip of the long bayonet into the Scotsman’s chest, running the blade through until it came out Hugh’s back. The big Scot buckled at the knees, dropped the tin box and collapsed onto the dusty earth.
‘No, you bastards,’ Tom screamed at the top of his lungs, launching himself at the mounted English officer. ‘He wasn’t a rebel, he was just trying to get out of here.’
The sabre fell and Tom felt it bite through the bone and flesh of his shoulder. He cried out with the searing pain before crumpling to the earth into an oblivion of merciful darkness.
The officer astride his horse glanced down at the ground where the two men lay. The policeman grunted, struggling to withdraw the bayonet from the body of the big man at his feet. He placed his foot on Hugh’s chest and gave a powerful tug; the bayonet came free, followed by a steady flow of blood.
‘That tin, man,’ the mounted officer said. ‘What does it contain?’
As the policeman scooped up the tin and opened it, the expression of surprise on his face was not missed by the English officer.
‘Money, sir,’ the policeman blurted. ‘A bloody lot of money.’
‘No need to curse on the Lord’s day,’ the officer said irritably. ‘Here, be a good chap and hand it up to me.’
The policeman eyed the English officer suspiciously, gripping the tin to his chest, reluctant to part with his sudden and wonderful find. ‘A trophy of war,’ he said. ‘With all due respect, sir, this money is mine to keep.’
‘It is considered looting, sir,’ the officer said threateningly. ‘And I am authorised by Her Majesty the Queen to shoot you down without trial for the crime.’
The policeman hesitated. His eyes darted around the enclosure to see if there were any immediate witnesses if he were to carry out the thoughts that had gone so quickly through his mind. When he glanced up at the officer he was startled to see that the Englishman had him covered with a small revolver. ‘Hand it up, man, and I will overlook this infraction of the rules,’ the officer said grimly.
The policeman could see that he had no choice. He had already discharged his musket in the early stages of the attack on the rebels’ stockade and had not had the chance to reload the single-shot weapon. Now he was out-gunned by the officer who had a sabre and revolver to enforce his command. The policeman handed up the tin box which the officer slipped inside his coat, before wheeling around his mount and galloping away, leaving the policeman alone with the bodies of the two men they had struck down.
The policeman felt something snatch at his coat and realised with horror that a stray musket ball had punched a hole through his jacket sleeve. It was enough to make him
think of the battle still raging around him. Already the miners’ tents were blazing, set alight by the rampaging troops of the two British regiments engaged in the attack aided by the goldfields police. What had commenced as some cross-fire had very quickly turned into a massacre of anyone found within the confines of the stockade. The overwhelming arms and numbers of the attackers were sure to bring the fighting to a short end. Forgetting the two bodies at his feet, the goldfields policeman secured cover from any more musket balls. He did not know that Tom MacDonald, as badly wounded as he had been, was still alive, although ignored by the soldiers pushing forward, seeking out anyone still standing.
Breathless and exhausted, John was able to cross the hard-packed earth road and get his equally tired and weary brother and sister to the edge of the bush, where they all fell to the ground to get their strength back. It had not helped either brother that they had taken turns carrying little Phoebe on their shoulders, turning the flight from the camp into a stumbling, ankle-twisting trot.
‘Where is Da and Tom?’ Lachlan gasped. ‘They should be with us.’
John raised himself to his elbows and stared in the direction of the miners’ camp. The gunfire was tapering off and he could have sworn that he could hear women keening their grief. ‘They will be here soon,’ he panted. ‘But we must go further into the bush and hide like Da said.’
With his last statement, John forced himself to his feet, picked up his sister and staggered into the dry scrubland that ran up the side of the hills. Lachlan followed. They were not alone. Many others who had fled from the encampment were also seeking the safety of the distant hills.
Duncan Campbell had been awoken by the distant rattle of musketry. It was an all too familiar sound from his past life serving the British Crown on many foreign battlefields – from Waterloo, as a young drummer boy, to the Indian campaigns of the North West Frontier. The little mongrel dog lying asleep beside him awoke to lift his head off his paws and sniff the air with a low growl.
‘Easy,’ Duncan said, patting the dog’s head. ‘It’s not in range.’
The Scot stood up stiffly to peer into the semi-gloom of the early morning. His head hurt from the excess of rum he had consumed the night before whilst sitting by his camp fire and wagon.
Duncan Campbell was a formidable figure and the red beard and thick, fiery hair hanging down to his shoulders were splashed with streaks of grey, denoting the fifty years he had lived on earth. He had the broad shoulders and barrel chest of his highlander ancestors and although he stood just over average height his powerful build made him seem taller. For three years he had plied his itinerant trade in the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales, a pedlar of trinkets, cloth, medicines, pots and pans.
‘Ah, but there is mischief on the fields,’ he murmured to his little dog. ‘I dinna think it will last long from the sound of it. No time to reload. It will come down to cold steel.’
He had seen all the signs of an impending battle on the goldfields and had expected a bloody clash. It was not in the nature of the British authority to allow armed men to contemptuously drill in sight of the Royal regiments and, knowing it would only be a matter of time before the Crown moved to teach the rebels that they could not pull the lion’s tail without it biting them, he had trundled his
horse-drawn wagon out of Ballarat, past the fortified encampment to seek a quiet place to camp.
Duncan reached for his battered old pipe and filled it with a plug of tobacco. Sitting with his back to the wagon wheel, he lit up and watched the grey smoke curl away on the light, early morning breeze. He remained smoking until the sound of gunfire drifted into sporadic shots and eventually into none at all.
With a sigh, he rose to his feet and went to his horse hobbled a short distance from the wagon. It was time to return to Ballarat.
Crying softly, Phoebe huddled against her brother John while Lachlan stood among the trees gazing in the direction of the stockade. He was too far away to see anything of the battle but the disturbing sounds drifted to him on the early morning breezes.
‘Why haven’t Da and Tom come?’ he asked without turning. ‘I think something bad has happened to them.’
‘They will come to us,’ John said firmly. ‘They said they would.’
Lachlan was not convinced. He did not know why, but he felt a dread he had never experienced before. The waiting was terrible and a man with a dreadful wound to his head had stumbled past their hiding place only moments earlier, only heightening his feeling of fear.
‘I will go back to the tent,’ Lachlan suddenly said.
‘No,’ John protested. ‘We are to stay here.’ But, before he could rise to his feet and stop his younger brother, Lachlan had broken into a run in the direction of the stockade. John was about to go after his brother when he realised that would mean leaving his little sister alone to the mercy of the
bush. Torn by his duties, John chose to remain with Phoebe, to protect her. ‘It will be all right,’ John said soothingly to his sister. ‘Da, Tom and Lachie will be back soon for us.’
In the stockade women were moving amongst the dead and wounded. Their anguished cries rose into the sky with the flames and smoke from the burning tents. Walking slowly amongst the carnage, oblivious to the troopers and soldiers around him, Lachlan could hear the agonised cries of the wounded. It was hard to tell where his father’s tent was, as the orderly rows had disappeared into burning heaps. But he did recognise the body of the man being thrown onto a wagon by red-coated soldiers sweating in the searing summer heat of the day.
‘Da!’ he cried out, stumbling forward to reach the blood-stained wagon.
A hand grabbed him by the shirt collar. ‘Where you goin’ boy?’ an Irish-accented voice asked gruffly. ‘There be only dead ’uns on the wagon.’
‘My da,’ Lachlan gasped, struggling against the strong hand that held him. ‘You are taking away my da.’
‘Sorry, lad,’ the gruff voice softened. ‘Not something a young lad should see, so come away with ye.’
Lachlan glanced up at his captor and saw the ruddy face of a soldier wearing the red coat of the British army.
‘Let the boy go, sergeant,’ a voice from behind said. ‘Only right that he sees – and remembers – the fate of those who would oppose the Queen’s peace.’
The grip was released and Lachlan turned to see a mounted British officer. The man had very fine features, hair the colour of corn and was about his brother Tom’s age. Lachlan did not thank him but immediately went to the
wagon to take his father’s limp hand in his. Tears spilled from the young boy’s eyes, splashing the ashen face. His father’s eyes stared with an opaqueness Lachlan had seen in his mother’s eyes only two months earlier when she had lain in a coffin awaiting burial. The consumption had killed her, people said in whispers behind his back. Now it was his father’s turn to have that same look of death.