A Bitter Harvest Read online

  PETER

  YELDHAM

  A Bitter Harvest

  First Published in 1997 in Pan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd

  This edition published by For Pity Sake Publishing Pty Ltd 2016

  109876543

  Copyright © Peter Yeldham 1997

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This edition © For Pity Sake Publishing Pty Limited

  3 Marinella Street

  Manly Vale NSW 2093

  Cover and Text Design: Ryan Morrison Design Pty Ltd

  Cover Illustration by: John Cozzi

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Yeldham, Peter, author.

  A bitter harvest / Peter Yeldham.

  9780994332677 (paperback)

  9780994332608 (ebook)

  Immigrants--Fiction.

  Love stories, Australian.

  A823.3

  In memory of Marjorie,

  whose idea it was to go to the Barossa Valley in search of a story

  PROLOGUE

  BROKEN HILL, NSW, 1886

  The man stood listening in the dark as the sounds of anger grew and disturbed the night. They became wilder, spreading from the canvas saloon bar of Connolly’s Hotel and beyond it, down Argent Street where miners lived in their shanty dwellings, past Stuart Lane and the lanterns held by the girls parading and plying for hire, reaching the edge of town and the stables behind the blacksmith’s shop, where he knew he had only a few minutes to save his life.

  He refused to panic. Taking precious moments to calm the horse as he fitted the saddle and tightened the girth, he then fastened the bulging saddlebags securely to the pommel. With infinite care he led the animal out of the shadows. He could hear the growing fury of the mob of men baying for blood — his blood — he could imagine them brandishing knives and rifles along with their share certificates, the worthless scrip he had sold them so successfully. The promoters he had used as a front were bound to lose their nerve and betray him to save themselves; it was all he could do to restrain himself from mounting the horse and galloping headlong into the night. But he had to remain composed, stick to the plan. It would be madness to try to outride those men, or to give the police time to receive a telegraph message and be waiting for him. It was vital no-one witness his departure, but far more importantly, that nobody even suspect the direction he had taken.

  As the distant crowd’s wrath became a growing tumult, the man carefully tied hessian around each of the horse’s hooves, and only then, keeping to the shadows and avoiding campfires, knowing there would be no tracks to follow, did he ride the horse quietly through the dusty streets named after the rich ores on which this barren place had grown and flourished. From Argent Street he turned into Chloride Row, down Zinc Street, Mercury, then Cobalt Road, until the gaunt skyline of the Silver City was behind him.

  In the bar of Connolly’s Hotel, passions flared and lamps flickered on the flimsy canvas walls, as one of the promoters tried to pacify the crowd.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he shouted, and for an instant they did. ‘Your investments are safe. All stock securities are certified by the company and personally guaranteed by the manager himself.’ There was a moment of silent disbelief, more threatening than the shouts and hostility.

  ‘So where is he?’ someone asked. ‘Where is the bastard?’

  If the frightened promoters had been able to answer this, what followed might have been avoided. But they hesitated, and the men who had been swindled out of their hard won scraps of silver knew in that instant their savings were lost. They had been cleverly robbed, and while the missing manager was the prime object of their rage, these two men had most certainly played a role. If the Silver City Trust Company, as it had been so extravagantly advertised, was a sham, then this pair posing as its trustees had contributed to the fraud.

  Someone in the crowd threw a brick. It cut the forehead of one promoter. Blood streamed into his eyes. Another missile aimed at his colleague smashed an oil lantern. Moments later flames were licking at the canvas walls. Violence exploded inside the tent, as the crowd panicked and tried to fight their way towards the exits. In the suffocating smoke, men were trampled on and women were pushed aside amid screams as the flames spread. Within ten minutes, Patrick Connolly’s hotel was burnt to charred scraps, and more than a dozen miners were suffering from bums and serious injuries.

  A mile to the south, the rider looked back to see the flames against the night sky, and wondered what had happened. He felt a trace of fear. He knew by dawn he must put at least thirty miles between himself and the town — after that they would never find him.

  It was on the third day he faced the fact that he might die. That morning the relentless sun had seemed fiercer than ever, the arid land more hostile, the circling crows increasing, their raucous cries more threatening. The barren, dry route he had chosen seemed to stretch on through succeeding heat hazes into a parched infinity.

  He had planned it so carefully, knowing they would mount searches for him along the roads that led east, and telegraph messages would be sent to every police station with his description. But apart from revealing he was a tall man, and young, not yet thirty years old, there was little to distinguish him. He knew this would not concern the authorities; they would be confident of intercepting his flight, for there was only one direction in which to flee — eastward, to the coast. All coaches would be stopped and searched, strangers questioned, and the name JEFFREY MCINTOSH would be tacked up on Wanted notices in every town. They would never for a moment anticipate their quarry might head inland and then south — across a thousand miles of mulga and waterless desert. They would dismiss this as sheer insanity. To travel this way led only to dehydration and death.

  He had thought he could beat the desert. Worked it out with such care. Apart from the heavy bars of silver, he had brought all the water bags his horse could carry. Food was less important: he had provisioned lightly, for he had heard nourishment could be found in the roots of the mallee — enough to sustain life — and that the human body could function for a long time provided it had sufficient water.

  By the third day he knew this to be untrue. By then there was not enough water in the whole world to slake his thirst. He was also desperately hungry. His horse was nearly lame and might not last the day. Worst of all, he was beginning to hallucinate. Four times throughout the blazing afternoon, the haze on the dusty plain turned into water. Once it was the deep blue of the harbour. Another time a wide, placid river, and when finally it became a stream cascading over rocks through a rainforest, he knew he was close to madness.

  They trudged on side by side, horse and rider, both limping now as he kept the sweltering sun to the west. He hoped it was the west. He found himself unable to deduce direction or distance. All time seemed to have stopped until the sun ceased to torment him, and had sunk below the rim of the earth. After this would come the frozen night. He had not known until now the desert cold could be so bitter.

  During the fourth afternoo
n he lost the feel of his limbs. He also began to consider the saddlebags of silver, aware of their weight, conscious they were a savage burden for the horse. Too late, he realised this was an impossible journey without a second animal. He found himself considering the idea of abandoning the silver, and once, to his horror, became aware of his hands unbuckling the straps. He started to wonder how to prevent himself — once his mind went — from leaving the precious saddlebags behind.

  Later on, he had no conception of how much later, he found himself talking to his wife. Their conversation, as so often happened, ended in a quarrel in which Edith blamed him for leaving her alone for so many months. She complained that she and the child were almost starving in their shabby, rented city slum, and she expressed her opinion that he was a fool not to have brought a packhorse. It was with a feeling of relief that he turned to his daughter, Elizabeth. She ran to him. He heard her voice and her enchanting laughter. It was a celebration — there was a birthday cake, although his vision blurred and he was unsure whether there were six or seven candles on it. He reached out to lift her in his arms, and felt her silky blonde hair brush against his face — grateful that this was reality, and the lame horse, the burning heat and relentless thirst were all a product of his wild imagination.

  It was after Elizabeth vanished, after she just smiled at him and then disappeared, that he finally accepted he was insane. In his madness he saw, emerging from the same heat haze into which she had evaporated, a bearded Afghan and his team of camels.

  That night, after the Afghan had killed the exhausted horse and they had cooked and eaten all they could manage, that night as the flames of the fire became embers and they huddled close to it against the chill desert air, the man bartered for his life. The Afghan spoke no English, but language was not necessary. Silver was the commodity understood by both men. They were each aware, that if the Afghan wished, he could kill the other man and take the heavy saddlebags — but only the Afghan himself knew that such an act was repugnant to him and outside his code of behaviour.

  In the end they settled it amicably enough; one saddlebag of silver in return for two camels, another bar of silver for a supply of food and water, plus a map scratched on the ground to show him the site of a soak forty miles south-east, and directions on how to find a river another two days’ ride beyond that.

  At dawn they parted, and before long the Afghan and his team became absorbed into the shimmering haze of landscape, like a mirage that had never existed.

  It was almost another four months, and by then the camels had long since been traded for other horses, that the rider finally turned eastward towards the coast. In a few more weeks he would be safely home. The police notices seeking the arrest of a man calling himself McIntosh had been shredded by wind, and faded in the sun. There were new notices, more recent crimes to be solved. The violence at Connolly’s Hotel, in a town inured to violence, was soon forgotten. Most people supposed the man had perished somewhere along his escape route. Following his presumed death, the Silver City Trust Company with its fraudulent scrip and non-existent shares became part of the folklore, another burst bubble, one more scandal in a boom that had left so many broken dreams.

  But it was not only in the Silver City, now officially named Broken Hill, that fortunes were being made and lost. Greed was rampant everywhere. The banks boomed then crashed in Melbourne and Sydney. Land prices soared, and fell as rapidly. It was a time of tremendous financial turmoil, of collapsing values both economic and moral, an era ripe for opportunists.

  Astute speculators benefited from the chaos. They bought fine townhouses and set about the business of advancing themselves. Shady street-wise profiteers became rich enough to buy their place in the world. It was called ‘social change’, and people soon learned it was better not to enquire too closely into the sources of their neighbour’s new-found wealth.

  SYDNEY, 1889

  William Patterson sat in an open carriage with his wife, Edith, and his adored daughter, Elizabeth, being driven towards their new home opposite the fashionable and prestigious Centennial Park. He was confident he had nothing to fear. His innate caution had delayed this day. It had taken over three years, since his return from nobody-knew-where, to remove his family from the tiny slum terrace in Glebe to this imposing Victorian residence with its extensive grounds, its summerhouse, tennis court and waiting servants.

  He had been — unlike some contemporaries — fastidiously careful. Not for him the outward show of sudden wealth. He had hidden the remaining saddlebags, and with great patience had begun to cash small amounts of silver. He never did so twice in the same district. Already he was guarding himself against future speculation, for he had deep ambitions, and was intelligent enough to realise the questions that might someday be asked, even in innocence.

  Where did he come from? How did he make his money? It was essential to have, not only the right answers, but the credentials to withstand any scrutiny.

  The money slowly accrued, and with it he had bought land.

  His timing, more by luck than judgement, was impeccable. Once £30 an acre, prime land close to the city rose to the dizzy and phenomenal heights of £300 a foot, and the pundits all declared it must soon double that. The rush to buy became a stampede. The pundits — most of whom had already acquired large tracts, and like William had an instinct for what was to come — sold out at vast profits before the crash. It made them enormously rich. More importantly, for William, it clearly established the source of his wealth for all to see. It created what he craved as much as the money itself, an aura of respectability. He was meticulous in other ways, finding a teacher to discreetly improve his speech, and an instructor to teach him the art of simple social graces.

  He gazed about him as the servants hurried to greet his wife and daughter: he observed the ritual of them being assisted from the carriage with immense satisfaction. Few men with his paltry start in life had reached such a position by their early thirties. It had all been worthwhile; the frightened months in the mining town, the fear of arrest, the desperate journey which would have seen him perish but for an itinerant camel driver. He used to wonder about the Afghan: what he had done with his bars of silver, whether he had prospered, or drunk it all in some trading post, or lost it at cards. Lately he thought of him less and less, and of the Silver City Trust Company, hardly at all. Like the name McIntosh he had used there, it was essential such details should fade from his mind. What mattered was the future. He must think and act as if this grand house was the style of living to which he had always been accustomed; as if money and position belonged to him by right of birth; it was imperative he be accepted by the social leaders of the city if he was to do the many things he had planned.

  ‘What do you think of it?’ he asked his wife, as they studied the house and the sweeping lawns.

  Edith looked daunted, and as often happened, her answer disappointed him.

  ‘It’s very large, William. Bigger than I thought.’

  She had seen it only once, driving past, the day he told her he had bought it.

  ‘You’ll have servants,’ he said, taking care none of them overheard him. ‘All the staff you require.’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, and he sensed that already she was half afraid of the people who would wait on her and do her bidding. Why must she be so timid, so unable to adapt.

  He turned away, the pleasure and expectation of the day spoiled. He saw his daughter looking eagerly about her.

  ‘Do you like it, Lizzie?’ he asked her.

  ‘It’s wonderful.’ Nine-year-old Elizabeth’s eyes were bright with excitement. ‘Just like a palace. Is it all ours, Papa?’

  ‘All ours, my love,’ he replied, feeling an immense affection for her. ‘And one day it’ll be all yours.’

  He took her by the hand, and like a pair of children in search of adventure they went into the house together.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  PART ONE

  One

  Two
>
  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  PART TWO

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  PART THREE

  Twenty

  Twenty One

  Twenty Two

  Twenty Three

  PART FOUR

  Twenty Four

  Twenty Five

  Twenty Six

  Twenty Seven

  Twenty Eight

  Twenty Nine

  Thirty

  PART FIVE

  Thirty One

  Thirty Two

  Thirty Three

  Thirty Four

  Thirty Five

  Thirty Six

  Thirty Seven

  Thirty Eight

  Thirty Nine

  Forty

  Forty One

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  PART ONE

  ONE

  William stood at the window as the carriage with the crested emblem of the State Premier entered the gates and stopped in front of the house. Behind him in the large formal room a fire crackled in the grate. Above the carved mantelpiece hung a painting of Elizabeth on her sixteenth birthday. It was a luminous and striking portrait by the noted Melbourne artist Tom Roberts.

  ‘The Right Honourable Mr Reid and Mr James North, sir,’ his housekeeper Mrs Forbes said, showing in the two men.

  ‘Mr Premier.’ William smiled, as they shook hands. It was their first meeting. James North, a neighbour and recent friend, as well as being a prominent member of Reid’s party, had arranged it.

  ‘A whisky, gentlemen?’

  George Reid hesitated, like a man about to refuse.

  ‘Bit early in the day. Perhaps a wee one though,’ he said in his Scots accent.