Cry of the Curlew: The Frontier Series 1 Read Online Free

their terrified cries were strangled short by a second volley from the muskets as lead shot found easy targets of yielding flesh and bone. When the carbines were emptied, they were wielded like clubs to crush skulls and snap necks. It did not matter whom they killed. Such was the speed and surprise of the attack that the warriors did not have an opportunity to effectively arm and resist and, like the wiser women and dogs, they chose the course of fleeing the terrible killing ground.
    In the melee of killing, Mort caught sight of a toddler. The divine madness was upon him. The child stood paralysed with a wide-eyed expression of wonder and fear of the strange creatures that had come into his world. He raised his chubby fists to his eyes to block out the sight that had caused him so much anguish as it thundered towards him. The sword took the little boy through his tiny chest and the momentum of the galloping horse lifted him bodily from the ground.
    With an expert flick of his wrist, Mort released the toddler from the point of the sword and had a fleeting glimpse over his shoulder of the little body tumbling like a rag doll in the dust with blood pumping in short, bright spurts from a ruptured artery.
    With a whoop of exhilaration for his first kill of the day, he searched with feverish eyes for another victim. A young woman or an unarmed warrior was his preference. But only the old and infirm remained amidst the carnage of the camp. Too slow to escape the troopers, they died with their hands over their heads in futile attempts to ward off the boots and carbine butts of the black policemen. Those able to find strength to resist their petrifying fear had now fled into the surrounding scrub. Mothers carried babies or dragged toddlers while the men desperately attempted to rally, to resist the troopers pursuing them, but they were scattered by the volleys of shot poured into their ranks by the troopers who had quickly and expertly reloaded.
    Henry snatched up his reins as the troopers slid from their mounts. The black police quickly shed their uniforms which only impeded them in the thick tangles of scrub. Naked, except for forage caps and ammunition bandoliers slung across chests, they plunged into the bush in pursuit of their helpless quarry, skilfully reloading their carbines on the move . . . Bite the end off the paper cartridge, pour powder down the barrel, paper cartridge as a wad, lead ball, ram home with ramrod swivel fixed to end of barrel, percussion caps on nipples of musket . . . gun primed and loaded.
    An eerie and unnatural silence descended around Sergeant Henry James, broken only by the crackle and hiss of the fires swirling clouds of grey white smoke into the morning air. Scattered screams of terror, popping sounds of muskets and excited yells from the stalking troopers drifted from the scrub to intrude on the silence.
    Later the crows would flock to pick at the feast left in the wake of the troopers’ murderous charge. At night the dingoes would scavenge as they snarled and fought with each other over the corpses. And finally the goanna would come to tear at the rotting flesh with its sharp teeth and dagger-like claws. But for now, the buzzing of the myriad flies formed the vanguard of the scavengers as they settled on the dead and dying.
    With his revolver drawn, Henry searched warily about the devastated campsite because these were not people who gave up their lives without a fight. He brushed away from his face a cloud of flies which rose from the corpse of an old Aboriginal man whose head had been crushed by the leather boot of a trooper and whose opaque lifeless eyes stared blankly at the cloudless sky above.
    As the police sergeant picked his way cautiously through the scattered bodies, he surveyed the devastation in the camp. Stone slabs, grooved for grinding seed for flour, lay scattered and broken among discarded spears, shields and boomerangs. A carcass of a wallaby lay black and hairless by a