Read To Chase the Storm: The Frontier Series 4 for Free Online

walked back to the hut to fetch a shovel. Jonathan would never understand the spirituality of the Kalkadoon, Saul thought as he walked towards the bark hut that had been his home.
    Together the brothers buried their father beside their beloved mother. Despite Ben’s apparent return to the religion of his ancestors he was also at one with the spirits of the red earth, lagoons, rocks and trees.
    The old bull stood under the shade of the scrub trees, eyeing the young man who was afoot. He watched with suspicion as the man raised a stick-like thing to his shoulder and pointed it at him. Annoying flies buzzed around his thick and powerful head and he snorted irritably.
    Saul trained the foresight of the Snider rifle squarely below the thick neck and over the scrawny bull’s heart. It was better to kill the stock than leave them to the mercy of the savage land of drought and flood. It was an easy shot, and the old bull would finally be freed from its harsh life in the scrub, Saul thought.
    But the shot was never fired. The rifle was lowered and the young bushman smiled. ‘You have sired a family that has learned to live in this land, you old bastard,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe your progeny will bearound when we are all gone from these lands. You have earned the right to live.’
    He hefted the rifle over his shoulder and strode back to where his horse grazed contentedly on the wild grasses of the vast inland plain. With easy grace he swung himself into the saddle and pointed his rifle at the sky. The shot rolled its echo through the scrub, causing the old bull to turn and trot away. The sound was like that of the stockwhip and the old bull knew its stinging bite.

FOUR
    F or as long as men have gone to war, barking voices have harried civilian recruits into untidy squads, platoons, companies and eventually battalions. The voices that abused their motley assemblies as poor excuses for fighting men belonged to the senior non-commissioned officers of the army: corporals, sergeants and, above all, sergeant majors. And mere hours after the news that Britain had declared war on the Boer Republics in South Africa, the barking voices were mustering their unruly flocks at military depots across the length and breadth of the colonies of Australia.
    Major Patrick Duffy stood by the brigadier’s window and gazed out onto the parade ground of Sydney’s Victoria Barracks. Although a major with a colonial regiment, Patrick was not in his military uniform but wore a suit, the more familiar uniformof his daily working life. He watched with a certain amount of nostalgia as straight-backed sergeants with quivering moustaches waxed to pencil points bawled incomprehensible orders at the civilians. Soon they would be soldiers in the mounted infantry, facing new terrors in the coming battles against the Dutch farmers across the sea. These recruits could ride and shoot with all the skills of their soon-to-be adversaries, tough men from the colony’s Outback where they had worked under the southern skies like the Boer. The sights and sounds were all so familiar to Patrick and he was momentarily transported back to the British army campaigning in Egypt and the Sudan.
    ‘Patrick, old chap, so good to see you again after all these years.’ The man who had entered the office offering his hand and a genuinely warm smile stood almost as tall as Patrick. He wore the uniform of a Scottish Highlands regiment and the rank of colonel.
    ‘Good to see you, John,’ Patrick replied as he grasped the hand of Colonel Hughes. ‘Must be at least fifteen years since we last met in Suakin.’
    ‘Must be, old chap,’ the colonel replied. ‘I remember then I was trying to talk you out of resigning your commission with us.’
    ‘You still have me, in a manner of speaking. If you can call command of a colonial militia regiment being part of the British army.’
    ‘My opinion is that your Tommy Cornstalks will well and truly be a part of Her Majesty’s imperial