The Gold Seekers (52 page)

The infantry storming party was advancing steadily their bayonets catching the dim light, their booted feet thudding on the dusty, bone-hard ground. Suddenly, as if alerted by the sound, there was a sharp cry of alarm from behind the stockade and then, startling in the stillness, a single musket shot, which woke the defenders to life.

Men rushed to the barricades, but before they were able to get off a ragged volley, the soldiers received the order to open fire. They did so in disciplined fashion, the front rank falling back to reload, the rear rank firing in their turn. A bugle sounded, shrill and clear, and led by their officer, with drawn sword, the redcoats charged resolutely up the slope and hurled themselves at the barricade to their front.

The defenders were firing back now with every weapon they possessed, and there were gaps in the charging ranks of the soldiers. Their officer fell, but he waved them on as he lay on the ground, and a sergeant took his place, yelling at them to close ranks.

Brownlow’s mounted troopers now fired a volley, and they and a second line of infantry joined the advance from the flank, their gunfire having cleared the diggers’ thin line and driven them back from the flimsy, crumbling barricade. The Californians used their Colts but were compelled to continue to fall back as the infantry storming party came swarming into the stockade, their bayonets locked in hand-to-hand battle with the Irish pikemen, who yielded at last, outnumbered and outfought. They retreated, leaving their dead and wounded behind them. The Americans, in their distinctive, brightly colored shirts, attempted to rally, using their revolvers to some effect, but soon they, too, were in full flight, the soldiers pounding after them.

“Draw sabers, boys,” Martin ordered grimly. “It’s up to us now—they’re running. Do your duty!”

It was full daylight now, Luke realized, as he spurred his horse after Martin’s, his saber in his hand. The rising sun threw the scene into sharp and chilling relief, lighting on bodies that lay spread-eagled on what was left of the diggers’ barricades and on the approaches to it … soldiers’ bodies, as well as those of the so-called rebels. Men were running from the rear of the stockade in wild panic, some alone, others in small groups, assisting wounded comrades.

One or two paused to fire at their pursuers, but the majority simply fled, letting their weapons fall as they sought for cover, stumbling and slipping on the pitted, uneven ground, and then staggering on, intent only on escaping the sabers of the two lines of advancing horsemen as they began to converge.

It was then, when he had all but forgotten the reason for his presence in Ballarat, that Luke observed a man on a bay horse suddenly break away from Inspector Brownlow’s

troop and head at a reckless gallop for the Geelong road—a route that would take him past the front of the stockade.

The fugitive was not in uniform, but he had undoubtedly been with Brownlow’s police in the initial attack, though whether or not he had taken an active part in it Luke had no means of knowing. Certainly he was running from the police now, and … there was something familiar about him, about the dark face, with its heavy mustache and the neatly trimmed whiskers, about the way he sat his horse and the long stirrup leathers. Jasper Morgan had always ridden long —he had said once that his was a British hunting seat. He … Luke drew a long, shuddering breath.

It was Morgan—God in heaven, after all his searching, he had at last found the man he sought! And the swine was running away, he would get away unless … Luke wheeled his horse out of line and set off after him with no thought in his mind save the determination to prevent his escape. To kill him, because he had killed Dan and Frankie and Tom, and because, however much Luke had tried to fool himself, that had always been his intention. The devil take it, Jasper Morgan deserved to die!

His horse was fast, it was carrying less weight than Morgan’s, and Luke knew that he was gaining on his quarry. But while he was still twenty yards behind, Morgan swerved suddenly to avoid a depression in the ground and drew level with the front of the now almost deserted stockade. A man was crouching there, wounded and overlooked by the soldiers, his flaming red head just showing above the crumbling parapet. There was a rifle cradled in his arms, and his harsh scream of “Traitor!” was cut off by the crack of the rifle’s discharge.

The bullet took Morgan in the chest. He fell with a strangled cry, and when Luke caught up with him, he was lying motionless, his shirtfront heavily stained.

Luke flung himself from his horse. Heedless of any danger to himself, he let the animal go and dropped to his knees beside the man he had intended to kill. But that random shot from the diggers’ stockade had done his work for him, he realized. Morgan was dying, coughing his life away from

blood-flecked lips—helpless and at his mercy. But at least he should know. He should hear Dan’s name before he died.

“I’ve caught up with you, Morgan,” he said, his voice harsh with the depths of his anger. “Do you remember me? Do you remember my brother Dan, that you left for dead in Windy Gully? Do you, Morgan? And the strike I made that you robbed me of? I want you to remember us, Morgan!”

Jasper Morgan’s eyes, dark with agony, focused on his lace, and Luke saw recognition slowly dawn in them.

“You!” the wounded man gasped. “God in heaven, after all these years! You’re the dim-witted boy, Luke … Luke Murphy! The devil take you, I …”

He struggled to sit up, a trembling, bloodstained hand groping blindly in the waistband of his breeches. It emerged grasping a Colt revolver, the weapon Morgan had always carried, but this time, Luke noticed with odd detachment, there was no ornate pearl handle. Although it was leveled at him, he was suddenly powerless to move, forgetful even of his own weapon, the saber he still clutched in nerveless, seemingly paralyzed fingers.

He heard the click as Morgan depressed the trigger, but the Colt did not fire. Cursing, Morgan endeavored to rotate the chamber, but the effort drained him of what remained of his failing strength, and he let the revolver fall.

Still Luke did not move. Without pity, he watched his enemy die, saw his eyes glaze over, and heard his high-pitched scream abruptly fade into silence. His quest was over, he thought dazedly, the long search was ended at last. Dan’s murderer had gone to meet his Maker.

From behind the diggers’ stockade, the wounded marksman who had fired the shot that killed Morgan slid a fresh round into his rifle. By now the redcoated soldiers and constables of the foot police were returning to mop up what was left of the defenders, but Rafaello Carboni still had time to send an accursed police trooper to perdition. He raised his rifle to his shoulder and fired, just as a redcoat’s bayonet buried itself in his back.

The bullet hit Luke just below the right knee, and almost with surprise, he felt the leg go numb and cease to support his weight.

He was still squatting awkwardly beside the body of Jasper Morgan when Sub-inspector Martin rode up and dismounted beside him.

“It’s all over,” the officer growled. “No thanks to you, Trooper bloody Murphy!” His shrewd eyes took in the scene confronting him, and he gestured with a derisive thumb to the limp body lying between them. “Is this him—is this the man you were after? Is this Humphrey?” “Yes, sir,” Luke confirmed faintly. “Did you kill him, lad? After what I told you, did you take the law into your own hands?”

Luke shook his head. He felt dizzy and light-headed, scarcely able to sit upright, and sick with pain.

“No,” he managed. “One of the diggers did. He fired from the stockade just as I was catching up with him. But …” He hesitated and then confessed defiantly, “I meant to kill him, Inspector. That was why I went after him. I—”

Martin silenced him. “Don’t be telling me things like that, Trooper, or I’ll think you ain’t suitable for the police service,” he warned dryly. “And maybe you’re not, at that! Still —” He turned over Morgan’s body with his foot, and observing the Colt, he bent to pick it up, spinning the chamber with practiced fingers. “One shot left in it, that’s all. He put the other five into Inspector Brownlow and one of his troopers when he ran. They aren’t sure if Brownlow’s going to make it. He took two bullets in the back.” Still with his foot, he turned Morgan’s body again and studied the dead face with frowning curiosity. “He must have been a scoundrel, this feller, and no mistake. Couldn’t be true to either side, could he? And you say he killed your brother… . Well, none of it got him anywhere. I reckon he’s going to have some explaining to do, when he meets Saint Peter at the pearly gates, don’t you?”

Luke nodded, unable to speak. Two soldiers walked past, carrying a red-haired digger between them, who, although obviously badly wounded, maintained a stoical silence until, seeing Morgan’s body, he cried out something in a foreign tongue and spit his contempt. The soldiers ignored his outburst and plodded stolidly away.

Martin straightened himself and sighed wearily. “Best be getting ourselves back to camp. Can you walk, Murphy?”

“I’ll try,” Luke whispered. “But I—” He tried to rise and then keeled over, waves of nausea sweeping over him.

“God, lad, I didn’t realize you’d been hit that badly.” The sub-inspector looped his horse’s rein over one arm and, with unexpected gentleness, bent and lifted Luke into his saddle. “Looks like the bone’s shattered to me, boy. But I’ll take you to the surgeon.” He added, an odd little smile touching his lips, “You’ll be out of the police if it is, and back to Sydney, maybe. Still, that’s what you want, ain’t it? Now you’ve done what you came to do.”

Luke did not answer him. But it was what he wanted, he thought, now that his quest was over. He wanted to go back to Sydney and to Pengallon. He wanted it with all his heart.

Red stood on the lee side of the Galah’s quarterdeck and stared across at the piers and wharves and the clustered buildings of what was now called Port Melbourne.

His ship’s boats—four of them—were lined up alongside the government wharf, on which two companies of her Majesty’s 40th Regiment were drawn up, answering to their names as the sergeants called the roll. A lighter stood by, being loaded with their baggage.

Red breathed an impatient sigh. He had brought these same troops here when martial law had been imposed on the Ballarat goldfield and reinforcements from Sydney had been urgently requested by the Governor, Captain Sir Charles Hotham. Now he was to bring them back to Sydney, and, he reflected ruefully, they could scarcely be more eager to return than he.

In Captain James Willoughby’s absence with the frigate Huntsman, in New Zealand waters, the only warship available to transport the troops to Victoria at such short notice had been his Galah, and he had been summoned back from his honeymoon in order to take them, together with the newly arrived military commander in chief, Major General Sir Robert Nickle.

Red started to pace the deck, his impatience growing. Those few precious days and nights, which he had spent in a state of exquisite happiness with his beautiful Magdalen, were now, sadly, a distant memory, bittersweet because they had been so brief. Indeed, he thought, he might have imagined them, were it not for the gold keepsake ring—Magdalen’s gift to him at their wedding—which he now wore on his left hand.

Looking down at the small, glittering object, he swore

softly in remembered frustration. For the haste had been unnecessary, the panic short-lived, and the troops’ role, like his own and that of his ship’s company, almost negative.

The gold diggers’ revolt had been over before they landed, effectively quelled by the police and those troops that had been at Governor Hotham’s disposal when it had broken out. Fewer than five hundred men had been actively involved and up in arms. As nearly as he could gather, their resistance had lasted for only a few hours, and victory had been won at a total cost of perhaps thirty or forty lives— most of these miners’—although Captain Wise of the 40th had been killed in the attack on the stockade and an inspector of police severely, if not mortally, wounded.

The government victory had been followed by over one hundred arrests and a manhunt embarked upon—with rewards of up to five hundred pounds—to ensure the capture of those ringleaders who had managed to escape and go into hiding.

Sir Robert Nickle’s arrival had, nevertheless, been a godsend, Red was compelled to concede. The distinguished old general, a courageous and many times wounded veteran of both the Peninsular and the American campaigns, had learned the value of tempering firmness with mercy. Of one hundred and fourteen prisoners taken after the capture of the Eureka stockade, Sir Robert had used his considerable influence to see to it that all save thirteen were released.

The thirteen unfortunates were to stand trial for high treason, but General Nickle had talked personally to all of them and had listened patiently to the diggers’ grievances, with the result that Governor Hotham had at once appointed a commission to inquire into the wrongs they claimed had been inflicted on them, including the exorbitant cost of their prospectors’ licenses.

Nickle—perhaps because so much of his life had been spent in battle with his country’s foes—was a peacemaker, and his conciliatory attitude had won the gold diggers’ trust and the Governor’s approval. It was largely thanks to him that young Angus Broome and his brother Lachlan had both been freed and permitted to return to their father’s sheep station at Bundilly—an outcome that had been greatly to the

relief of Tim Broome, his own first lieutenant, Red recalled. The boys had made no profit from their exertions on the Eureka lode, but their contention that their deceased partner had deposited at the Treasury gold they had jointly mined was, Tim had told him, to be investigated.

Red smiled to himself. Neither lad, when he had seen and talked to them, had seemed unduly concerned as to the result of the investigation; they had departed, happily enough, for Bundilly a few days ago, more concerned about the reception they might expect from their father than for the fortune they might have lost.

“Sir!” It was Francis De Lancey, now his brother-in-law and restored to the Galah’s company, but wearing a midshipman’s white patches in place of the single epaulet that had once adorned his uniform. “Sir, there’s a boat putting out to us—not one of ours. Looks like the advance party at last or—” He had his glass to his eye, and he corrected himself. “No, they seem to be invalids, sir. I saw one fellow walking with a crutch on the wharf.”