To Touch the Clouds : The Frontier Series 5 Read Free

approached a cleared area of the paddock. The Bleriot touched down, bounced a few times and came to a halt only twenty yards from where the two men stood. Dust trailed its landing as the bamboo tail skid-ploughed a small furrow in the earth. The engine spluttered into silence and Matthew Tracy – now better known as Matthew Duffy – eased himself from the cockpit to clamber to the ground. He wore goggles and a leather skullcap and his face was splattered with black oil. Beneath the grime of the flight was a face many women found appealing and the young man also had the muscled body most men envied. Matthew walked towards the two observers, taking off his goggles to reveal his eyes still untouched by the oil from the engine.
    ‘We have a visitor,’ Randolph said, walking towards his friend. ‘Colonel Duffy.’
    As he approached the tall, broad shouldered man in his early fifties Matthew held out his hand. There was no mistaking the bearing of the military man he had been – and still was – when he returned Matthew’s firm handshake.
    ‘Sir, it has been a few years since we last met,’ Matthew said with a broad smile. ‘It is good to see you.’
    ‘It is good to see you, young Matthew,’ Patrick said, releasing his grip. ‘What, ten, twelve years?’
    ‘Thirteen, I think,’ Matthew answered just a littlesheepishly. ‘I should have kept more in touch with the family.’
    ‘At least your mother has kept us up to date with news of your adventures,’ Patrick said, reaching into the pocket of his jacket that he’d slung over his shoulder. He wore expensive suit trousers, a clean-starched shirt, braces and a straw boater hat. ‘Can I offer you a cigar?’ he asked, producing three fine Cubans.
    ‘No thank you, sir,’ Matthew replied. ‘I am just a little dry in the throat after the flight.’
    ‘Kate, your mother, wrote from Queensland to say that you were doing something with your Bleriot down our way,’ Patrick said, offering the third cigar to Randolph who accepted it gratefully. ‘Although you took great pains to conceal the importation of your aircraft into Australia I was informed of its existence. As you had not broken any regulations with our Customs the matter was not of any concern to the civilian authorities. But it did pique my interest – especially as it was by a cousin in the family of a well-known adventurous character. You know, you worry my Aunt Kate to death with your escapades overseas.’
    ‘I don’t mean to,’ Matthew said. ‘My mother is a good old stick.’
    Patrick smiled at the young man’s reference to his mother. Even in her late fifties Kate Tracy was a very good-looking woman with considerable wealth and power in the state of Queensland. Many eligible men attempted to court her but Kate Tracy, once also known as Kate O’Keefe and originally Duffy, thwarted all advances. Her life was lived for her only son and the financial empire she ruled over.
    ‘So, what was that all about?’ Patrick asked, gesturing with his cigar towards the paddock where the bag of flour had been dropped.
    ‘I was experimenting with the idea of using aircraft to drop bombs,’ Matthew answered. ‘Texas rigged up a latch system that I could operate from the cockpit to release the bag, which under other circumstances might have been a modified artillery shell with fins to assist a more accurate flight.’
    ‘You realise that Harry Hawker has just last week flown his Sopwith off the Caulfield race course in demonstration flights and has made some good money for his efforts. You could have done the same.’
    ‘That Yank Harry Houdini beat us all to the first demonstration flights in Australia.’ Matthew shrugged. ‘What I have in mind here will be more important than financial gain when we go to war with the Germans.’
    ‘So you believe war is imminent in Europe?’ Patrick asked, drawing on his cigar.
    ‘I have toured Europe – even Germany – and I can feel it coming,’ Matthew