To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 (44 page)

The Englishman turned away to disappear behind the building, leaving Saul feeling uneasy. The man was arrogant and very sure of himself, which was unsettling. Saul turned his attention back to his trainee who was staring up at him, her big, brown eyes sending a sudden surge of sorrow through Saul. God willing that she would never experience what Anna had in her last moment alive, he thought. The memory of the Russian beauty he had once yearned for spurred Saul back to his task of being the hard man. Pity was something he could no longer afford if he was to keep his promise to Jakob, that no other man or woman of the
moshava
would fall victim to raiders. Nor would he ever allow himself to get close to a woman again. To do so seemed to be a death warrant for her.

Two days passed and the English archaeologists enjoyed the hospitality of the
moshava
. Saul kept out of the colonel’s way and counted the days till his parting. He even volunteered for extra patrols of the
perimeter to ensure that he was able to avoid meeting with him.

After a night of sleeping out in the arid lands Saul rose to blink away the sleep from his eyes and prepare for the day. Nothing worth noting had occurred on the Arab side of the valley to suggest a possible retaliatory raid, although Saul had observed strangers coming to the Arab village. But after the strangers departed all would be quiet again.

He shook his bedroll and secured it to the saddle. His hobbled horse was grazing a short distance away just below the ridge Saul had selected for his bivouac. He flung his saddle over his shoulder and hefted his rifle to walk to the horse but suddenly froze. In front of him was a very faint but distinctly European-style imprint of a boot – and not his.

‘I would not make any rash moves, Trooper Rosenblum,’ the voice said from his right. ‘I am a crack shot and could have killed you as you slept.’

‘You have no authority here, Colonel,’ Saul said casually, but knowing he was at a great disadvantage. ‘This is Ottoman territory.’

‘I am aware of that. As much as I am sure that you must be one and the same as a certain Trooper Saul Rosenblum, wanted on a warrant for the murder of an English non commissioned officer. I always had a strong feeling that you were not killed at Elands River. Your sort are like rats leaving a sinking ship.’

‘I didn’t desert,’ Saul replied angrily. ‘I was captured.’

‘Desertion will be added to the charges when I take you back to face British justice,’ the colonel said as he advanced on his prisoner.

‘I can’t see how that will happen when here you have no bloody right to arrest me.’

‘It’s either that – or I carry out a summary execution here and now.’

Saul smiled. ‘That you will never do because, if nothing else, you are English and pride yourself on the fairness of English justice. I have to give you bloody pommies that much credit.’

Saul slowly lowered the saddle and turned to face the colonel full on, still holding his rifle but making no attempt to raise it. From the expression of self-doubt on the colonel’s face, Saul could see that he had touched a nerve with the Englishman.

‘Did you kill that sergeant?’ the colonel asked, his revolver unwavering.

‘Yeah, I killed him,’ Saul said defiantly. ‘After he killed an innocent girl. And I would do so again under the circumstances.’

‘Then you readily confess to your crime, Trooper,’ Hays Williams said. ‘I am surprised that you would considering the position you are in.’

‘Are you married, Colonel?’ Saul asked.

‘I am,’ the Englishman replied stiffly. ‘Your point, Trooper?’

‘What would you do to the man who killed your wife if you knew he could go free for the murder?’

Hays Williams frowned. ‘That is irrelevant,’ he replied.

‘Well, I did what I knew was right, and killed the man who murdered the woman I loved. So you had better execute me now, because I am never leaving this land alive.’

The colonel raised the pistol level with Saul’s head and aimed. The Australian stood stock still, staring defiantly into the Englishman’s eyes as if daring him to fire. With his thumb, Hays Williams cocked the pistol.

The sun was rising as a great yellow ball over the ancient, arid lands of Saul’s distant ancestors. If this was where it was to end then he was ready.

Slowly, Hays Williams lowered the pistol and carefully eased off the hammer. ‘You are right about our sense of justice, Trooper Rosenblum,’ he said. ‘But I can promise one thing – so long as I live I will do everything in my power to bring you before a military court.’

Saul felt terribly weak. He had faced his firing squad and expected to be shot. He watched the colonel stride away stiff backed to disappear behind the ridge.

Very slowly, Saul bent to pick up his saddle. Was it that the threat of death no longer concerned him, he wondered as he continued his walk to his horse. It was a terrifying thought. Saul sensed that he had not seen the last of Colonel Hays Williams. He did not appear to be a man to utter idle threats. But when and how they would meet again was beyond Saul’s control.

FORTY-SIX

W
hen news of the death of Lady Enid Macintosh reached Karl and Helen von Fellmann in Queensland, they immediately packed their few possessions and took a ship from Brisbane to Sydney where Helen, as Patrick’s half-sister, assumed the role of the mistress of the house.

Alex was pleased to be reunited with his Aunt Helen and Uncle Karl who he could talk to about the trek they had undertaken in search of the legendary Wallarie. But sadness tinged their recollections whenever the conversations touched on Alexander’s grandfather, Michael Duffy.

Over afternoon tea served in the garden, Fenella listened intently to the conversation, and sighed for the fact that she had not been granted the privilege of travelling with her grandfather. ‘Oh, why can’t women live like men do?’ she blurted.

‘Times are changing,’ Helen said, sipping at a cream-laced coffee served in a delicate china cup. ‘I believe that in our own lifetime women will live to enjoy the rights men take for granted.’

Karl tried not to smirk and glanced at Alex who frowned. His sister had some strange ideas and so too did his aunt, he thought.

‘What do you intend to do with your life when you come of age?’ Helen asked her niece.

Fenella’s pretty face broke into a beaming smile. ‘I am going to be an actress and travel the world,’ she replied, eliciting a disapproving frown from her uncle.

‘Nice young ladies do not aspire to become actresses,’ he said. ‘You should be considering seeking the hand of a good, God-fearing young man with expectations.’

Fenella’s bright expression faded. ‘The only young man I would have considered went away to South Africa,’ she sighed, ‘and when he returned, Lady Enid forbade me to see him again.’

‘She means Matthew Duffy,’ Alex said tactlessly.

‘I am sure Lady Enid had her reasons,’ Helen consoled her niece. ‘No doubt you will meet again if it’s meant to be. You know,’ Helen continued, ‘we met Matthew’s mother after we returned from visiting Pastor Otto Werner and his wife Caroline on their mission station west of Townsville. Mrs Tracy is a wonderful woman who has achieved more in her lifetime than most men could in ten.’

‘Father has talked of his Aunt Kate,’ Fenella said. ‘Matthew must be like his mother then.’

‘Or his father,’ Karl reminded. ‘Men are more likely to be like their fathers. It is a well-known fact of nature.’

Both Fenella and Helen raised their eyes to the heavens. Each tacitly decided at that moment that they liked each other. For Fenella, her Aunt Helen was another woman she could talk to in the absence of her own mother. And in Fenella, Helen saw the girl she hoped her own daughter might be like – if that was ever possible. She could only pray so. Meanwhile, Helen hoped that she would be able to spend a lot more time with her niece.

Only Karl and Helen attended the legal offices of the Macintosh companies to hear the reading of the will. A bald-headed solicitor with bushy mutton chop sideburns sat behind his impressive desk of polished mahogany. He adjusted the spectacles perched at the tip of his nose and, with a cough to clear his throat, commenced to read the document containing the last wishes of Lady Enid Macintosh nee White, who had been born in England and died in Sydney.

The lawyer droned on through the usual legal preamble and read out the expected beneficiaries of her estates. Naturally she left the bulk of her estate to her beloved grandson, Patrick Duffy, and his heirs. Miscellaneous items were left to favoured members of her staff but towards the end both Helen and Karl sat up with a start.

‘. . . and a portion of Glen View as surveyed in a plan lodged with my solicitors as a title deed is to
be bequeathed to my grand-daughter Helen von Fellmann to be used for the purposes of the Lutheran Church to bring God to the remaining native peoples of the Glen View region. This land is to be utilised as a mission station so long as seen fit by the Lutheran Church and administered by my grand-daughter Helen with the provision that the Aboriginal known as Wallarie returns to Glen View, of his God-given free will, within a year and a day of my demise. If this does not occur then the land is to remain as part of Glen View. To my . . .’

Helen did not hear the remaining bestowments. Her mind was in a whirl. Her grandmother had finally recognised that she should do something for the Aboriginal people the family had dispossessed so many years earlier.

Outside the office on the city street busy with buggies and lumbering drays, Helen and Karl discussed the repercussions of the land grant. They finally had a home from where they could do God’s work amongst the native people. Lady Enid Macintosh had recognised the need to reconcile with the ghosts that haunted Glen View. It was now up to Helen and Karl to find Wallarie and bring him home.

Pastor Otto Werner, who they had met in northern Queensland, had not been much help in locating the man who had once saved his and his wife’s lives a quarter of a century earlier. So how would they find Wallarie where all others had failed, including the old warrior’s former nemesis, the Queensland Native Police? Helen sensed that to fail in their search for
Wallarie would have repercussions beyond merely losing the valuable Glen View land. An uncomfortable and superstitious thought, flying in the face of her Christian beliefs, made Helen think that the curse that seemed to dog her family might continue if they failed.

Lady Enid had left a quaint little sandstone cottage on the northern side of the harbour near the village of Manly to Fenella. A kookaburra brayed its welcome from a great gum tree in the backyard and the wisp of salty air made the place feel festive. Helen stood beside the young woman gazing at the overgrowth of plants around the house.

‘It is really mine?’ Fenella asked in an awed voice.

‘It certainly is,’ Helen reassured. ‘I remember this place from when I was even younger than you. Sometimes my mother would bring your Aunt Dorothy and I here to get away from Sydney. An old man was the caretaker. I think he used to be a convict and he would catch fish and net ducks for our suppers.’

‘Oh, I want to see inside,’ Fenella exclaimed in her excitement.

She had loved the grand old lady, despite her aloofness. And by way of her will she had demonstrated her eternal love for her great grand-daughter in the magnificent gift of this house.

Helen led Fenella up the stairs onto the shaky wooden verandah and opened the door with the key left in Enid’s desk. The place had a musty smell but
otherwise seemed in good repair as a caretaker had maintained the holiday house since Helen had last visited as a little girl. As Helen opened some drapes to allow the sunlight to flood in, she could hear Fenella excitedly moving from room to room.

‘Can we stay tonight, Aunt Helen?’ Fenella asked breathlessly as if she had been running.

Helen patted her niece affectionately on the head. ‘I have come prepared for such an occasion in anticipation of your wishes,’ she said with a warm smile. ‘Go back to the carriage and tell Henry he can bring in our supplies while you and I tidy the cottage. Henry can prepare a fire in the stove while you and I sweep and dust.’

For once Fenella did not object to domestic chores. This was, after all, her house. A magical place. A place she could call
her
home, despite it being a lot less grand than the mansion she had grown up in.

The coachman staggered under the piles of boxes to be deposited in the living room and grumbled as he went to work chopping wood for the stove. He was a man skilled with horses, not a mere navvy. But when the work was complete Helen rewarded him with a bottle of beer and he bid the two ladies good-night before returning to the city.

Both women rolled up their sleeves and went about restoring the house. By last light they were sufficiently satisfied that the place was habitable.

‘I do not know how to cook,’ Fenella confessed.

‘Fortunately I do, young lady,’ Helen smiled. ‘One learns a lot when one is married to a missionary.’

They ate a meal of cold corned beef and boiled
potatoes with garden peas by candlelight. Not as elaborate as the fare Fenella was used to, yet it somehow tasted better than any meal she could remember. They followed with mugs of sugared black tea taken on the verandah, where they slumped in a couple of old cane chairs found in a bedroom.

The evening was balmy and Fenella felt very content. This was her adventure and for the moment all her cares were gone. But suddenly she remembered something she had found which had intrigued her. While cleaning in the master bedroom she came across an old leather satchel behind a bureau. Upon opening it she found inside a mysterious sheet of paper. Now she would ask her Aunt Helen if she knew anything about the sketch that had been in the satchel. Although the drawing was very faded and frayed by time, the face stood out on the thick paper. Fenella passed the sketch to Helen who drew the candle close to examine the stiffened sheet.

‘Is that a picture of you, Aunt Helen?’ Fenella asked as Helen strained to read the faint words on the page. The face of the young woman depicted was surrounded by tiny fluttering angels. ‘It looks so much like you but I imagine it was done a long time ago,’ Fenella continued.