Beyond the Horizon Read online

  It is 1918, a year when the War will end, but an even greater killer will arise.

  On the bloody fields of the Western Front and the battle-scarred desert plains of the Middle East, Tom and Matthew Duffy are facing the enemy. Even as they are trapped on the front lines, they must also find the courage to fight for the women they love when all hope is lost.

  Back in Australia, George Macintosh is outraged by the stipulations of his father’s will that provide for his despised nephew, and is determined to eliminate any threats to his power. And in a sacred cave in the far Outback, old Wallarie foresees a tide of unspeakable death sweeping through his homeland.

  As all nations come to terms with the devastating consequences of the Great War, a new world will be born. But not everyone will live to see it.

  Beyond the Horizon continues the much-loved saga of the Duffys and Macintoshes, told with Peter Watt’s trademark mastery of grand scope, family drama and enthralling adventure.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Family Tree

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Part Two

  Chapter Twenty- Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Author Notes

  Acknowledgements

  About Peter Watt

  Also by Peter Watt

  Excerpts from Reader Emails

  Copyright Page

  Dedicated to a great publisher and friend,

  Cate Paterson,

  Who has been there from the beginning.

  It is well that the water which tumbles and fills,

  Goes moaning and moaning along;

  For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills,

  And he starts at a wonderful song –

  At the sound of a wonderful song.

  Henry Kendall, The Last of His Tribe

  PROLOGUE

  Central West Queensland

  Early April 1918

  The devils danced in the shimmering haze above the stunted brigalow scrub. Wallarie was transfixed with horror, watching the shifting shapes rippling like water.

  The old Aboriginal warrior raised his long, hardwood spear, although he knew full well that a spear was no defence against these demon spirits and their macabre corroboree. Wallarie must not approach these devils, whose twisted mouths spoke to him of approaching death. This death was so terrible that it would strike even the young and fit of all peoples, black and white, drowning them from inside, choking off the very air they breathed and carrying them off to a painful but quick death. It would come to the land that Sir Donald Macintosh had given the name of Glen View all those years before, when Wallarie’s clan had lived in harmony with the gentle spirits of the bush. Before his people had been slaughtered by the Native Mounted Police and Sir Donald’s shepherds.

  ‘Go now,’ the ghostly voices told him. ‘Go now and do not return until death has swept these lands.’

  The demons melted into the haze of the afternoon and Wallarie lowered his spear. It was time to heed the warning and travel beyond the horizon, far from his traditional lands. One day he would return to sit under the bumbil tree in front of the Glen View station house, to smoke his battered clay pipe and wait patiently for Tom Duffy, the last of his blood, to return to him from the other side of the world. Young Tom was the grandson of the infamous bushranger of the same name who once roamed the wild places beyond the colonial frontier of Queensland. The bushranger, who had been felled by a Native Mounted Policeman’s rifle, had married a Darambal woman, Mondo, and their children carried Darambal blood into the next generation.

  Wallarie was not so sure that Tom Duffy would return, because the ancestor spirits sometimes liked to joke with those still living, and nothing was certain except that he would one day join the ancestor spirits in the night sky.

  First, though, he would make a short journey to Glen View homestead to visit the woman and child there, exiled from their home far to the south. There he would gaze on the face of the boy who was inextricably linked to the future of his blood.

  Afterwards, Wallarie would leave his place to wander the desolate lands, meeting others of different clans who had also been dispossessed by the white man’s cattle and guns. They would sit around the fire and talk of the times past. Wallarie, a warrior of many skirmishes against the white man, would be feared and respected by those strangers for his prowess and magical powers. They would be polite, but he knew they would be pleased to see him pass from their camp. His path was a lonely one, but that was the way of the warrior.

  Wallarie scratched his scarred chest and set out for Glen View homestead.

  The Western Front

  March 1918

  With his back to the newly dug trench, Sergeant Tom Duffy slid the oiled metal bolt of his Lee Enfield back into place and locked it down. The young man was in his early twenties, but years of fighting in the trenches of France and Belgium had taken their toll. His dark hair was streaked with grey and his deep brown eyes aged by the horrors he had seen. His dark skin was covered in red rashes from lice bites and he stank, just like his comrades.

  ‘Sarge,’ said one of the new reinforcements to his platoon.

  The reinforcements had come just as the Germans had launched a massive attack across the Western Front, causing both the French and British armies to reel back in confusion. It seemed possible that the Germans might win the war after all, as the German army had changed its tactics, using small groups of highly trained shock troops to rush sections of the front line with submachine-guns, flamethrowers and a good supply of grenades. Tom knew that the aim of the shock troops was to break into the Allied rear echelon where they could disrupt logistics and artillery support. In his desperation General Haig had deployed Aussie and Kiwi troops south to take up defensive positions against the seemingly unstoppable onslaught. The Germans had advanced so deep into the Allied rear that they had been able to bring up artillery to shell Paris itself, and it was only a matter of time before the Imperial German Army would be in France’s capital city, beating the newly arrived American army still being deployed alongside their war-weary Allies.

  ‘What is it . . . Private Dean?’ Tom asked, eyeing the new man and pleased that he had been able to remember his name.

  ‘Where are we?’ the soldier asked.

  Tom had already scanned the red-brown rolling fields from the gentle rise on which they had dug their trenches and he could see the tower of a church and several elegant chateaux. He had also seen a textile factory and cross-referenced these landmarks with the map in his possession.

  ‘The town over there is Villers-Bretonneux,’ he told Private Dean. ‘But you don’t have to worry about where we are – just make sure your rifle is in good working order and your bayonet hasn’t rusted.’

 
; Tom watched the young soldier amble back to his section and take a cigarette from Corporal Smithers. Tom knew that the corporal hated him because he had been promoted to platoon sergeant ahead of him. But Smithers had never demonstrated any leadership ability; his promotions thus far had come through attrition in the units he’d served with.

  Tom turned away. There would always be bad apples in the army, and he would always cop criticism from some people for being a blackfella. That was the way of the world, war or no war.

  ‘Bloody blackfella,’ Corporal Smithers grumbled to no one in particular. ‘Wouldn’t know his way around a white man’s world. Not bloody right that the CO should promote him over a whitefella.’ Smithers was a burly, powerfully built man who stood over six feet tall. He had a flat face with small piggish eyes that never smiled. He was a well-known bully who had grown up in the slums of Sydney, where it was rumoured he had been a hard man in the criminal world. It was also rumoured that the only reason he had enlisted was to get away from the law closing in on him for the murder of a prostitute in Sydney’s Rocks area. Those in his section feared him with good reason.

  ‘Shut yer bloody trap,’ Corporal Dan Frogan snapped. ‘Tom Duffy has sent more Huns to hell than the whole bloody battalion put together.’

  Corporal Dan Frogan glared at the new recruits strung along the trench. ‘Sergeant Duffy was once recommended for a Victoria Cross but the system stuffed it up. If you want to get out of this war alive you’d be well advised to follow Sergeant Duffy without question. He might be a blackfella, but around here the colour of a man’s skin don’t mean a thing – all that matters is he knows what he is doing when the whiz-bangs are overhead and the enemy is staring down your throat.’

  Corporal Dan Frogan fell into silence then and the men looked away uncomfortably. Dan glanced up the trench to where Tom sat alone. He could see his old friend gazing down at the battered photograph he always carried in his breast pocket. Dan loved Tom Duffy like a brother; they had relied on each other to stay alive through many bloody battles.

  Dan knew that the photograph was of a young French girl Tom had met a year earlier. Dan had met her when he had been on leave with Tom and had been struck by the girl’s beautiful face and soul. Her name was Juliet Joubert and she had short dark hair, big brown eyes and a cherubic face that reminded Dan of the pictures he had seen of pretty young girls on chocolate boxes. Tom had told Dan that when the war was over he would marry Juliet, who was a schoolteacher in her village far behind the front lines.

  Tom looked up and noticed Dan staring at him. He gave Dan the briefest of smiles, then tucked the photograph back into his pocket. Dan nodded and returned his attention to his section. Sergeant Tom Duffy was one of the best soldiers in the Australian army and it was just lousy luck that he was considered a half-caste, otherwise he would have been made an officer by now. Dan knew how proud Tom was of his Darambal heritage. There was only one full-blooded member of this central-west clan – an old man by the name of Wallarie – and he and Tom shared a special empathy which Dan could never quite understand. Tom had been spawned by two cultures and was spurned by both, yet he had a deep spiritual connection with the Darambal that was difficult to explain to a whitefella.

  Dan hoped to God that he and Tom survived this war and that his friend could marry the girl he loved; perhaps then he would find an acceptance he hadn’t found anywhere else in his young life.

  The sound drifted in the early morning mist. It was a sound Tom Duffy knew so well, yet it still made his stomach churn.

  ‘What’s that?’ he heard Private Dean ask in a frightened voice.

  ‘Where’s Mr Sullivan?’ Tom asked Dan Frogan, who had made his way up the trench to him.

  ‘He should be back by now,’ Dan answered, reaching for his bayonet in its scabbard. ‘He was at an orders group with the CO.’

  ‘Then it’s you and me, Dan,’ Tom said.

  ‘What’s that noise?’ Private Dean asked again, and Tom felt annoyed. It was obvious what the sound was. It was death coming for them in the crackle of small-arms fire and the crump of hand grenades.

  ‘Fix bayonets!’ Tom bellowed and his order was followed by the scraping sound of long, sharp knives being dragged from scabbards, followed by the click of bayonets being fixed to the end of rifle barrels.

  The spear point of the whole German army was coming, and all that stood between their victory was a handful of Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Should the Germans break through, the war would be over.

  ‘Here they come!’ someone yelled, and Tom stood to take his place on the parapet. Through the mist he could see the German shock troopers in their grey uniforms, dashing in small groups from cover to cover. Tom aimed at a soldier carrying a flamethrower on his back.

  ‘Fire!’ he roared as he pulled the trigger. He watched as the German with the flamethrower collapsed. He heard a Lewis gun to his right open up on the advancing enemy. All Tom could do now was pray that Wallarie’s magic was still with him; pray, and kill as many Germans as possible. The next few minutes could decide the outcome of the war on the Western Front.

  Part One

  1918

  Death and Destruction

  1

  The elegant sandstone building bedecked with climbing ivy was one of the finest houses overlooking the beautiful harbour of Sydney. Time and technology had changed it only slightly. Where horse stables once stood, there were now garages for cars; but the sweeping gravel driveway still saw the arrival and departure of the city’s most notable residents, all come to visit George Macintosh, heir to the vast financial empire of his forefathers.

  George Macintosh was well known as a philanthropist, and it was rumoured that he would eventually be knighted by the king for his services to Australia’s war effort. Such was his public persona; those close to him saw beyond the veneer of respectability and knew him to be a man with ruthless ambition and little empathy for the suffering of others. Those who knew him even more intimately dared not openly speak of their suspicion that George had had a hand in the murder of his own sister in his efforts to gain sole ownership of the many and varied lucrative Macintosh companies.

  It was midmorning and George sat in his library perusing the daily paper and reading the grim war news. Not so grim for him, of course. If Germany won the war he had much to celebrate, as his secret investment in their chemical industries would prove very profitable and he would be viewed by the Kaiser’s Germany as a good friend. He could at least thank the war for taking the lives of his stupidly patriotic father, Patrick, and his brother, Alexander, thus eliminating them from any control of the Macintosh empire.

  George flipped through the paper to an article about how the infamous fighter pilot, Manfred von Richthofen, aka the Red Baron, had been shot from the skies over Australian lines. A Canadian fighter pilot claimed the victory but so too did Australian machine-gunners firing from the ground. Who really cared? George sneered, flipping the paper closed and reaching for a cigar.

  He snipped the end and lit the cigar in a cloud of blue smoke. There had been a time when George had looked down on smoking and drinking, but that had changed in the last couple of years. Perhaps he indulged in both vices because his wife, Louise, did not approve of such practices, and he took pleasure in spiting her. Their relationship might appear sound from the outside, but within the confines of their home it was a different matter. Louise had had an affair with Sean Duffy, the former war hero and Sydney solicitor, and while George would never forgive her this, he certainly wasn’t going to allow her to undermine the respectability their marriage brought him. He had threatened to keep their toddler son, Donald, from her, and Louise had very sensibly decided to end the affair and remain by George’s side.

  There was a timid knock on the door of the library.

  ‘Come in,’ George called and the door opened to frame his young housemaid. ‘Mr Dwyer is here, Mr Macintosh,’ she announced and slipped quickly away.

  ‘Come in, old chap,�
� George said, not bothering to rise from his comfortable leather chair to welcome his solicitor. After all, the man worked for him and was paid well. George had arranged the meeting at home so as to ensure absolute privacy.

  Mr Dwyer entered the library, clutching a leather briefcase with apparent nervousness.

  ‘Take a seat,’ George said. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No thank you, Mr Macintosh,’ Dwyer answered carefully.

  George got up and poured himself a tot of Scotch, then sat down behind his desk. ‘What news of my father’s will?’

  Dwyer flipped open his briefcase and spread legal papers out in front of George. ‘The will has been authenticated,’ Dwyer sighed. ‘It seems he must have had a portent of his own death and rewritten his will before his untimely demise. It appears that the first will has been superseded by the one that Major Sean Duffy produced, naming him as sole executor.’

  George swallowed the tot in one gulp, placed the empty tumbler on the desk and stared intently at his solicitor. ‘So where do I stand?’ he asked in a cold voice. The fact that the probate matters were in the hands of Louise’s former lover made the alcohol sour in his guts.

  ‘You are to share the control of the companies with your brother Alexander’s son,’ Dwyer answered after clearing his throat. ‘It appears that Brigadier Duffy stipulated that your sister-in-law, David’s mother, is to manage his interests until he turns twenty-one and assumes shared control himself. In the event that she is unable to manage her son’s affairs, the brigadier has nominated his solicitor, Sean Duffy, to do so.’

  George could not sit still: he rose from his chair and walked over to the large window overlooking the driveway and gardens. He stared out onto one of the flowerbeds, where an old man was hunched over pulling out weeds. His brother’s son was like a weed in his perfect garden, George mused angrily. If only he could dispose of him as easily as the old man was disposing of the garden weeds. And what was to stop him? After all, he had reached halfway across the world to have his sister, Fenella, murdered.