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

You see, I have to confess that I arranged this meeting for reasons other than just renewing our acquaintance. It happened that, before I sailed for Sydney from London, I received a file on someone close to you as part of my briefing.’
    ‘My father?’ Patrick asked hopefully. ‘He is alive?’
    The colonel shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. Not your father. It’s your cousin, Father Duffy.’
    ‘Martin?’
    ‘Father Martin Duffy S. J. A rather colourful – and some would say dangerous – man.’
    ‘Martin dangerous!’ Patrick exclaimed. ‘Martin’s just a priest. How could that be dangerous?’
    The intelligence officer rose and walked across to a wooden filing cabinet, opened it and rustledthrough folders until he found what he was looking for. Returning to the desk he sat down, flipping open the manila folder and peering at the reports relating to a Jesuit priest trained in Rome, but originally from the Colony of New South Wales.
    ‘How much do you know about your cousin?’ he asked quietly.
    Patrick frowned as he recalled the boy he grew up with. Martin was reserved to the point of timid. How could such a boy grow to be a man considered dangerous by the might of the British Empire?
    ‘I have not seen Martin in over twenty-five years. Unfortunately my choice to renounce my Catholic religion put me on the wrong side of the Duffys. Only my Aunt Kate in Townsville still corresponds with me. So there is little I know of Martin – I heard through Aunt Kate that he had gone to Rome to be ordained as a Jesuit priest. Then I heard that he was on missionary work in Africa . . . Africa! That’s the connection, isn’t it?’ Patrick exclaimed suddenly.
    ‘Yes,’ the colonel replied. ‘That, and his anti-British activities in Ireland. I think under the circumstances, old chap, I can tell you a certain amount, without compromising secrecy. Most of what I will tell you is common knowledge in Ireland and Africa. Father Duffy is currently in Ireland covertly recruiting young men to join an Irish Brigade to fight on the Boer side,’ Hughes said grimly. ‘He had a rather lot of success recruiting around the mines and goldfields in the Boer Republics when he was in Africa. We fear he may also have secret contact with the Kaiser’s people in Germany in his crusade against us. We have beenassured by the Vatican that his secular work is not condoned by the Catholic Church.’
    Patrick sat in stunned silence as the colonel outlined the picture of a fearless, if misguided, fighter for Irish freedom from Britain – a picture of a man so much the opposite of the one he remembered when his cousin and he were growing up together at the Erin Hotel in Redfern.
    ‘Why doesn’t the Church discipline him then?’
    ‘They would if they had proof. Your cousin is a Jesuit and it seems that they have trouble controlling the Soldiers of Christ,’ Hughes answered with a note of sarcasm. ‘The founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, was once himself a mercenary soldier of some enviable repute and I suppose some traditions die hard. From what I have heard even the occasional excommunication of the Jesuits does not seem to deter them.’
    ‘I was taught by Jesuits when I was young,’ Patrick said quietly. ‘They are the brightest and toughest the Church has.’
    The colonel nodded. He had a grudging respect for priests whose rigorous training and dedication were not unlike those of a good soldier. They had a reputation as fearless and learned warriors of God, and their crusades had taken them to some parts of the world long before the great imperial powers of Europe reached them officially. From India to Japan they had gone, at great risk to themselves, and now one of them had taken on a crusade against his own government in the name of justice for the Irish. A very dangerous undertaking!

    ‘I know there is little you can do,’ the colonel said gently, seeing the pain in his friend’s face, ‘but if Father Duffy ever returns to