To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 (15 page)

Sister Greeves led Patrick to a bed at the end of the ward where the shadows of the lamp fell on a profile he had last seen fifteen years ago, crouching beside an ox wagon, with a Winchester rifle, waiting for the Boer commando to launch its night assault on them. Patrick stood beside his father’s bed staring down at him.

Although Michael was in great pain he grimaced at his son. ‘Hello, Patrick,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Or should I call you sir, as you seem to outrank me.’

Patrick pulled a face and shook his head. He had only one question after fifteen years of presuming his father was dead.

‘How?’

Michael attempted to drag himself into a sitting position. His son helped him prop himself against the wall behind the bed. ‘Got a cigarette?’ Michael asked when he was moderately comfortable.

Patrick produced a crushed packet and found a relatively dry cigarette which he lit and passed to his father. Michael inhaled deeply before answering. ‘I was lucky. They hit me all at once and in the darkness and confusion I got hold of one of their horses. When they woke up to what had happened I was halfway down to the river. I got off the horse and took to swimming. The horse was still galloping away in the dark and the stupid bastards followed the sound of it away from me. It was as simple as that.’ He took another long drag on the cigarette. As simple as that...

Patrick knew it had probably not been that simple but he also knew his father was not a man for elaborate explanations. ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you contact me to say you were still alive?’ he questioned in a cold voice, as if his father were an enemy to be interrogated.

‘You know my life, Patrick,’ the Irishman replied. ‘I’ve been a dead man ever since you were born and there was no reason why I should disturb your life. And besides, it did not seem a good idea because you were rightfully with Catherine. I’ve never felt good about what happened.’

Patrick shook his head. In his mind the affair between Catherine and his father had long been buried. He did not blame his father for Catherine’s infatuation with him – she had been very young then. Time had brought Patrick some wisdom in the matter long past. ‘Do you know that you have a grand-daughter and two grandsons? Don’t you think that they have a right to know you, even if I didn’t seem to have that right?’

Michael smiled at his son’s revelation. ‘Ah, but that’s a grand thing to know. Tell me about my grandchildren.’

Patrick sighed and sat at the edge of the bed, describing the three children to his father who listened engrossed as the cigarette burned down to his fingers. As Michael questioned his son on their lives, Patrick felt an unexpected closeness to this man who was almost a stranger to him. This was only the third time he had met his father in his life. The dangerous intrigue that was Michael’s life had kept father and son apart.

When Patrick had answered his questions about his grandchildren, Michael moved on to the rest of the family. The answers came: Daniel Duffy was now a politician of some standing, fighting the Federationists with words, in favour of the colonies forming a republic on American lines. Lady Enid was alive and well and running the Macintosh companies in his absence. Aunt Kate, Michael’s sister, was well and the wealthiest woman in the Colony of Queensland. Young Matthew had turned up in Sydney and enlisted under-age without his mother’s knowledge. In response
to his urgent inquiries, Patrick had just received a telegram from Arthur Thorncroft confirming the worst. Matthew was with the New South Wales Citizen Bushmen’s Rifles en route to South Africa.

At this news of his nephew Michael growled his disapproval. Both men vowed that he would be intercepted and put on the first ship back to Australia, in irons if necessary. But they also agreed that Kate should not know of Matthew’s foolhardy adventure until her son was located.

‘Did you know of my mother’s death?’ Patrick finally asked.

His father looked away. ‘I did not know,’ he answered softly. ‘When did she die?’

His son told his father all that he knew of his mother’s peaceful death in Prussia. Michael nodded but no tears came. Instead he sighed and related a story from his own experiences.

‘About ten years back I was doing some hunting in Bechuanaland, mostly lions. I had an opportunity to observe the big cats and the way they lived and I learned something that makes a lot of sense to me now. Maybe it always did. I learned that the female lion was happiest with her sisters. The females would hunt and live together and the old male would just prowl around as a solitary creature. The female only needed him when she came into season. For that privilege he was prepared to put his life at risk fighting off other competitors for the females. But when that time was over, she went back to her sisters, to live out her life. I don’t think lions and people are much different.’

Patrick could understand what his father was trying to tell him. He knew of his mother’s passionate love for her cousin Penelope and his story of the lions was his way of attempting to reassure his son that his mother had not been an evil woman.

‘I do know of the matter of Catherine and yourself, Patrick,’ his father continued. ‘Soldiers talk, especially about the private lives of officers, and I am truly sorry that matters turned out the way they did.’

‘It’s all just part of the curse that will never end for us,’ Patrick said bitterly.

‘If you mean that blackfella curse your Aunt Kate is so fond of espousing, then I could almost agree,’ his father said. ‘But if that is so, then I suspect that the curse was upon me, and not you, son.’

‘It is a plague that infects the blood of both the Macintoshes, and the Duffys,’ his son replied with a note of despair. ‘It’s not something we can fight like a Boer commando. It’s an insidious force in our lives. Everything I have learned, from Lady Enid and others, points to that event at Glen View forty years ago. And I do not know of any way of putting an end to it.’

Patrick was surprised to hear his father chuckling softly at his lament. ‘I think you have a bit of your Aunt Kate in you, son,’ he said as he gripped Patrick’s hand. ‘And if you have then you will know how to take away the curse.’

‘Then you too believe we are cursed,’ Patrick said earnestly.

His father shrugged and lay back against the wall. ‘Last month we were skirmishing along the Modder
with a Boer commando of around a hundred
Uitlanders,
Americans, Frenchies, Germans and a bunch of Irishmen amongst them. My troop stumbled on their
laager
by the river just on sunset. We took them by surprise but they stood their ground and fought hard. It came down to the bayonet. When it was all over we had lost five good men but they had lost a lot more, including a few from our ancestral village in the old country. I learned that they had been recruited by Daniel’s boy, Father Martin Duffy of the Jesuits. So maybe the curse does exist if a priest of the True Faith would be rallying men to war to fight you and I. Especially a priest who is of our own blood.’

When Sister Greeves came to change the bandages of the grizzled captain’s wounds, Patrick realised that he had sat talking with his father into the grey dawn. The ward was stirring with the appearance of more staff as he left his father in the tender care of the Australian nurses. Some local women had also volunteered to assist in the care of the sick and wounded, a generous gesture when their own men still rode the
veldt
, fighting the comrades of the soldiers the Boer women tended.

The rain had eased and the sun attempted to break through the low grey clouds that scudded across the sky as Patrick mused over the unexpected appearance of his father. At a time when he dreamed too often of death, perhaps his appearance was more than coincidence. Maybe it was meant to be, especially since his father had expressed his desire to return home to Australia as soon as he was released
from hospital. He was weary of a life steeped in violence and dreaming of a pilgrimage to the graves of his own father and brother Tom. He wanted to sit with his beloved sister on the verandah of her big house in Townsville and talk softly of people past in their lives, Aunt Bridget and Uncle Frank, old Max Braun, Henry James and so many others now dead and buried and too soon forgotten. Michael Duffy was seeking retirement from the world of war he had known all his adult life but Patrick had other plans for his father. Just one last mission before he sought the peace he had never really known in his troubled life, something that only the legendary Michael Duffy could resolve. Next time he visited he would put the proposal to his father.

Patrick was weary as he walked away from the hospital. He had had little sleep in the previous twenty-four hours so the general order to attend an early briefing at headquarters brought him no joy. The young lieutenant dispatched to fetch him, one of the fresh new arrivals sent as reinforcement from England, saluted smartly as he delivered the command from above. Lord Roberts was obviously close to announcing the day the now-reinforced column would march north on Pretoria, Patrick thought grimly. He suspected that the Boers would fight fiercely to defend their capital.

Bringing his horse to an abrupt halt outside Annabelle Ramsay’s house, Saul flung himself from the saddle and sprinted up the path to the front door.

‘Karen,’ he blurted as she hurried to greet him. ‘We’re on the advance. Just got through being briefed by Corporal Hastings a couple of minutes ago. Came straight here to see you.’

Karen’s expression reflected her dismay. ‘Pretoria?’ she asked as she pulled Saul through the open door and held him.

‘I suppose that is the general’s plan,’ he answered. ‘I have to be back in five minutes. I promised that I was only ducking away for ten. We have to get ready this afternoon to move at first light tomorrow.’

They held each other in a crushing embrace motivated as much by their love as the shared fear that the war was sweeping them in different directions. A soldier was not a man who could choose where he went. He could not opt out of the army as a civilian might choose to seek other employment. Soldiering was a strange form of slavery, founded on loyalty and regulated by strict martial laws.

‘You will think about all we have spoken of together while you are away,’ Karen said with an intensity that caused her slim body to tremble. ‘That when you have finished with this war you will come with my father and I to Palestine to live.’

‘I promise I will think about what you have said,’ he replied as his arms crushed her to him and he bent to kiss the top of her head. The scent of her clean hair was a perfume he wanted to carry with him in his long days ahead riding the
veldt
. ‘You promise me you will look after yourself. If anything was to happen to you . . .’

His words trailed away in a choking voice. He
fought the tears that threatened to overwhelm him. He did not think of what lay ahead for him. At that moment he knew without hesitation that he would willingly lay down his life to protect this woman if needed. He reluctantly broke their embrace and gently kissed her on the lips. As he turned to stride back to his horse, his rifle slung over his back, he did not want to look back and see the pain he knew was in her face as much as it was in his. Although Saul had listened to Karen outline the plans she and her father had of travelling to Jerusalem and setting up a jewellery shop, he had hoped she would lose her enthusiasm. He had quietly spoken of Queensland, in hopes that she might travel back with him to the land of his birth. But it did not seem to be so. Yes, he would consider her plan to go to Palestine as soon as his enlistment was up at the end of the year.

As he swung himself into the saddle to ride away he was acutely aware that should he not choose to go with her to Palestine then he would surely lose her. He also knew he could be useful to her cause, as both an experienced fighting man and as a man who knew farming. He would have much more than just staying alive out on the
veldt
to consider. He would also have their future to decide on.

The next morning twenty-four thousand men and two hundred guns rolled out of Bloemfontein following the axis of the railway line that pointed north to Pretoria. At the same time, to the east of Lord Roberts’ advance, General Hamilton led a column on a parallel course. In both columns the Australian horsemen rode ahead or on the flanks.
They would be the first to engage the screening horsemen of any Boers between them and the capital. Major Patrick Duffy would ensure that he was in the reconnaissance parties as many times as possible on the advance.

FOURTEEN

T
he dig had begun with a disagreement. Catherine argued that they should dig down from the top of the hill, while Eamon suggested an excavation from the base, digging an exploratory trench from the side as if cutting a slice from a cake rather than a well into the centre. He reasoned that this method would also allow them to excavate to the heart of the mound, as Catherine desired. In the end they compromised and the dig commenced to one side of the mysterious ring of stones with a course descending towards the core of the small hill.

Eamon intoned a prayer for their success and the first symbolic spadeful of soil was turned by Catherine to mark the commencement of the enterprise. Two workmen from the village had been hired to carry out the manual work of excavation, both with experience channel digging in England. For two
weeks the men toiled to clear a wedge-shaped trench pointing into the heart of the hill. But in that fortnight nothing had appeared in the carefully sifted spadefuls of soil.

Each day when Eamon arrived at the dig expectantly, Catherine would shake her head. Her journal recorded very little other than the fact that all that was being turned over was soil. But at least the soil itself indicated that the hill was not a natural feature. The priest had pointed out the probability that the earth had come from the plain below, surmising that a boggy marsh close to the Fitzgerald house had probably been created by the removal of soil to build the closely packed mound. The excavators shored up the sides of the trench to avoid the ever-present nightmare of a sudden cave-in caused by water seepage.