Free To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 by Peter Watt

They needed to find accommodation for the night, and as Matthew had a considerable amount of cash in his pocket, they decided on a hotel. The next day they would enlist in the contingent that the Colony of Queensland was sending to South Africa.
    As they trudged along a dusty, wagon-rutted road, Saul was deep in his unhappy thoughts. What if the boy managed to enlist and got himself killed? How could he ever face the woman who had been so important to his father? And in a battle situation the boy’s demise seemed almost inevitable to Saul. Although physically mature, he was still in many ways a boy. Sure he was big enough to pass for eighteen or so. But sometimes on their trip south hesounded just like a fourteen-year-old straight off the rugby playing fields. It was as if the boy saw what lay ahead as just a glorified game of football.
    The closer they came to Brisbane town the more determined Saul became to thwart the boy’s attempt to enlist. It would not be easy. Matthew Tracy had learned to ride and shoot on his mother’s property at Balaclava during school holidays, and it sounded as though the boy had learned quickly. If he was as good as he said then he might just fool the recruiters. And yet he felt guilty that the boy’s money had got him to Brisbane in time to join up. Matthew had a winning way about him that made betrayal hard. He had to think of something before they went to the military barracks in Brisbane to sign up.
    They arrived at a hotel that looked good enough for a cold beer, good meal and night’s accommodation. As Saul signed them in, the publican eyed the roll of pound notes fingered by the tall, broad-shouldered young man beside the sun-blackened bushman. Must be twenty quid, he thought avariciously, already counting in his head the amount of grog that could buy, including a bit of short changing as the evening wore on and the alcohol took hold. The war in far-off South Africa had been good to the unscrupulous publican as young men from the bush flocked to Brisbane to enlist in the great adventure.
    Saul and Matthew threw their swags onto the metal cots on the hotel verandah and were greeted by other men who had streamed out of the bush to the recruiting depots. The hotel was packed and only the sight of so much cash had induced the publicanto find space for them in his already crowded establishment. Saul soon found a couple of men he knew from the Cloncurry district who had ridden in days earlier to join up and the party adjourned to the noisy bar.
    As Matthew tried to act as if a hotel bar was familiar territory to him, Saul noted with some disappointment that the boy was settling in too well with the rough and tough men from the bush. He introduced himself as Matthew Duffy, eighteen-year-old stockman from the Balaclava run, out west of Rockhampton. Fortunate that the Cloncurry men knew few of the Balaclava stockmen, he was able to parry any questions on horses and cattle from that area.
    But the flow of beer that came with the numerous shouts of the bushmen was another matter. At home Matthew occasionally sipped on a sherry or port after dinner in the company of his mother, and at his Catholic boarding school he joined other boys in drinking small quantities of purloined altar wine, provided by altar boys for a fee. But he was out of his depth with the hard-drinking men from the bush and the afternoon seemed to fade into a happy blur of laughter, boasting and more beer. Saul watched Matthew quickly becoming inebriated as the afternoon wore on and smiled to himself. He no longer felt any guilt for what he planned. Young Matthew had a long way to go if he were to join the company of men.
    Matthew did not know how he came to be on his cot on the verandah of the hotel fully clothed. All heknew was that when he awoke in the morning it was to the rough shaking of the publican, who said that his time was up and he had to leave or pay another day’s accommodation.
    Matthew groaned as he sat up, then