A Shameless Halloran mystery

      A novel by Stafford Sanders,

      from a story by Stafford Sanders & Tony Latimore

      Bloody Colonials

      © Stafford Sanders 2015

      All Rights Reserved

      Published in eBook format by A Sense of Place Publishing, 2015

      ISBN-13: 978-0-9925-4876-6

      No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I wish to acknowledge the very valuable collaboration of Tony Latimore on the original story and feature screenplay of Bloody Colonials – including his conception of the character of Shameless Halloran.

      I’m also very grateful for their critical input to friends and authors Frankie Seymour (All Hearts on Deck), Dr Julie Browning (Dynasties)and Gary Bryson (Turtle); and to the following for their creative/critical contributions: Lucy Browning, Kea Browning, Rebecca Browning, Rod Crundwell, Janet de Bres, Suzy McKenzie, Celeste Pena, Charlie Sanders, Dr John Sanders, Kim Sanders, and Dominic Stone.

      Cover Design by Jessica Bell.

      DEDICATION

      I dedicate this book to the memory of my father John Sanders (1917-2010) – doctor, carpenter, husband, father; lover of the bush, the beach, and a good laugh.

      Dad enjoyed my first draft – said he ”couldn’t put it down.” Yes, I said, arthritis can be a bugger. At least he doesn’t have that to deal with any more.

      WIDE BROWN LAND

      (Extract from the theme song to the intended feature film of Bloody Colonials)

      Dawn of a new day in strange paradise

      We rise with first light as one

      We hitch up our chains and we take up our tools

      And toil till the long day is done

      Far from our homes and the land that we knew

      The natural laws we once took to be true

      Still the climate’s not bad and there’s fine lands in view

      To work when our sentence has run

      We follow their orders, we do what we’re told

      Don’t question the wrong or the right

      We’re slaves to an empire where sun never sets

      ‘Cause God wouldn’t trust them at night

      The ground rules keep shifting, the words don’t ring true

      “Do what we say, never mind what we do”

      Still, the water is cool and the sky is bright blue

      And we’ve independence in sight

      Drowning in sunlight, jumping at shadows

      Struggling so hard to understand

      This wide brown land

      Working on long leads, drifting in dreamworld

      Struggling so long to understand

      This wide brown land

      © 2008 (R.Crundwell/P.Fenton/T.Latimore/S.Sanders)

      You can listen to or download the song, performed by the author’s band Men With Day Jobs - Track 3 at

      http://menwithdayjobs.bandcamp.com/album/dreams-and-tinsel

      Prologue: THE HORSEMAN COMETH

      A thunder of hooves comes carving at daybreak through the roll and roar of ocean swell crashing against high cliffs.

      Wild irregular sandstone crags, they are. Laid down by eons of sedimentary deposit, which ageless motion of wind and wave have scooped and swirled like massive spoonfuls of caramel ice. Far below, huge chunks of this rock, sheared away by the relentless erosion, have crashed to the shelf beneath. There they now lie, like fallen behemoths being slowly consumed in the jagged, frothing jaws of the animal ocean which roars and gnashes and hurls itself repeatedly against the feet of the weatherworn giants.

      All this beneath a sky far too blue, a sun far too high and unrelenting than it would appear from the Scottish coast, the White Cliffs of Dover or anywhere else in the Northern Hemisphere. This swirling sea is not the North Sea, the North Atlantic or the Mediterranean. It is, rather, the great South Pacific Ocean.

      We have arrived, in the bright dawn of this crisp morning, at the oldest continent in the world: Terra Australis, the Great South Land. Later, of course, called “Australia”; but that will be almost a century beyond this fateful morning in the year 1810.

      Listen, the thunder draws nearer.

      Around the towering cliffs, a horse bursts into view, ridden at a hearty canter along the narrow rocky clifftop track. It moves with sureness born of familiarity.

      Its rider is a man of slight to medium build, perhaps middle-aged, possibly grey-haired, probably clean-shaven, certainly hatless, and wearing a plainish brown riding coat. Though the surroundings are not European, the rider in his manner of dress certainly appears to be from that part of the world.

      In the rider’s face there is a grim set: brows knitted together just a crease more tightly, jaw set a twitch more firmly, than can be explained solely by the effort of riding. Something is going through the mind of this man. Something that troubles him.

      Seeming comfortably set in the saddle and well versed in the twists and turns of the rough track, the horseman digs his heels into the flank and drops his head as his mount approaches a sharpish bend. He shifts his weight automatically in readiness, the horse slowing just slightly to negotiate the oft-taken turn.

      But at the very fulcrum of the bend, the rider gives an abrupt and startled cry. A desperate moment of scramble - but purchase is hopelessly lost, centrifugal force doing its inexorable work, body sliding outwards with a rush of fabric and leather.

      And whatever concern he had felt up to this point is nothing compared to what he feels now - at finding himself suddenly and finally airborne.

      The hapless horseman plummets from view like yet another lump of sandstone towards the rocks far below. Doomed figure followed by something else falling with him, final scream drowned in crash of waves.

      Flecked with dreadful crimson, ripples start to spread. And spread.

      There now comes the single mournful cry of a seabird – as the horse, having renegotiated its equilibrium following the unexpected loss of burden, comes shuffling to a halt on the clifftop. There it stands, alone in silhouette, whinnying gently towards the unforgiving ocean.

      1. LAND HO

      In other circumstances, the hearty cry of “Land Ho!” ringing out from the throat of a sturdy young sailor, stripped to the waist atop the crow’s nest of a majestic tall ship, might have elicited feelings of excitement, elation or even exhilaration, of a tremendous sense of the achievement of a