To Ride the Wind Read Free

from his pocket a tin of pipe tobacco and placing it on the earth. ‘My father said you had a liking for it.’
    Wallarie looked up at the young man and smiled. ‘You are a cheeky bugger – but your father was right. Mebbe there is hope for you if you listen to your Nerambura blood.’
    ‘Maybe we will meet again,’ Tom said, turning towards the entrance of the cave.
    ‘Mebbe,’ Wallarie answered, reaching for the round tin.
    Tom left the cave just as the last light flickered on the horizon to the west. ‘Matches,’ he muttered, remembering that he had meant to leave Wallarie a packet. Quickly he returned but was stunned to see that Wallarie was gone. He searched in every part of the cave’s interior but there was no trace of the old Aboriginal.
    Mystified, Tom stood at the head of the track back down to where he’d left his horse. Suddenly the shadow of a huge wedge-tailed eagle rose up behind him from an old gum tree. The flutter of its wings caused Tom to jump as the great bird of the inland plains rose into the air to fly towards the sinking sun.
    Tom shook his head. It was impossible. The unexpected appearance of the bird was nothing more than a coincidence and yet he remembered Wallarie’s last words about listening to his Nerambura blood. Had the old warrior flown from the hill as an eagle? As Tom stumbled down the track he attempted to tell himself the great bird was nothing more than just that. But still . . .
    After Wallarie watched the young man walk away, he closed his eyes to dream. He could see the plains below drenched in the blood of the current owners but the image was not of this time. He knew that he was seeing the death of many of the Macintosh and Duffy clans. He had not assured his visitor that he would live when he went as a warrior to fight in the whitefella war. Only the ancestors knew a man’s fate, but Wallarie suspected that Tom’s ability to stay alive would depend on his skills as a warrior. He did know that the good would die with the bad and Glen View would become a place of grieving. Just as it had a half century before when his people had been slaughtered by the whitefellas who came to seize the lands he still roamed.

PART ONE
    1916

1
    L ieutenant Colonel Patrick Duffy was approaching his fiftieth year, having served in three colonial wars for the British Empire. Tall with broad shoulders, he still had the patrician appearance of a man who inspired confidence in those he led. As a battalion commander, he had brought his men off the beaches at Gallipoli a few months earlier and his competence and concern for his men there earned their respect.
    Now, as he leaned against the damp parapet of the trench, scanning the no-man’s-land before him with a pair of field glasses, he wondered if they would continue to respect him after hearing the insane orders he must deliver to his company commanders. Briefed by the brigade commander at a gathering of battalion COs, he had raised the question of adequate artillery support for the planned assault on the formidable German entrenchments a mere 500 yards away. The answer he received made the tactic appear suicidal, although he as an officer could not reveal his personal opinions to the men he would lead in the attack.
    He could see a plain of knee-high grasses, nurtured by the rain and sun of the northern summer, sweeping towards a gentle rise etched with the outline of entrenchments along the high ground in front of him. The sea of grass covered the scars of battles from the year before when the British army had suffered terrible casualties on the German-held ground. Now it was the Australians’ turn to assault the German trenches.
    Only hours earlier Patrick had been behind the Australian lines, basking in the warmth of a beautiful summer’s day, listening to the lazy hum of bees as they buzzed around fields of red poppies and watching butterflies flitting among pastures of blue wild flowers. The lush green grass dotted between neatly