Beneath the Southern Cross (28 page)

‘Ernie Morgan's not ten yet,' Tim said the day after his birthday, ‘he's only eleven months older than me, and he's twice as big.' Despite their wrestling match, or perhaps because of it, Ernie and Tim had become good friends.

‘Of course he is,' Billy argued encouragingly, ‘look at his father.' Tim's expression said ‘so what'. ‘Look at Horse,' Billy continued. ‘Look at Ernie's other brothers. All three of them. They're huge. The whole family's built like that. Well, all of them except his sister,' he added (Horse's sister was a ravishing beauty, a fact which bewildered and fascinated the push), ‘just as well, eh?' He grinned lasciviously at Mick who grinned back. Not that either of
them had ever dared cast an eye in the direction of Horse's sister, Horse would kill them if they did.

The answer didn't satisfy Tim at all. ‘So what about our family? You're not little. And Dad's sure not little.'

‘I was once, I was a real runt.'

‘Oh yeah.'

‘Too right I was. I swear I didn't grow an inch till I was about fifteen.'

‘Yeah, yeah,' Tim sneered again. Even more derisively this-time. He didn't believe Billy for a minute and he was regretting the fact that he'd brought up the subject.

Billy and Mick were leaning against the lamp post outside the Pig and Whistle. It was late afternoon, changeover time for the day and night shifts at the nearby workshops and factories, and workers, old and young, male and female, passed to and fro in pairs or groups, demanding comment from the local push. Billy and Mick obliged as usual with admiring whistles for the girls and cheeky insults for the men.

Tim looked at his heroes. Beers in their hands, slouch hats at a rakish angle, Billy with neatly rolled fag in the corner of his mouth, and Mick with clay pipe in his, they made an impressive pair. Tim felt depressed. He'd never look like that. He dug his hands deep into the pockets of his baggy shorts and stared down at the dust. He should have kept his trap shut, he shouldn't have told them, he'd never told anyone else.

‘It's a fact, Tim,' Mick said, tapping his pipe on the heel of his shiny-black shoe, he always did it with panache. ‘Billy was a skinny little bugger.' Tim looked up, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. ‘Short too,' Mick added, slipping the pipe back into the top pocket of his vest.

Mick didn't lie, Tim thought, his spirits lifting a little. Well, not when he didn't have to anyway. And Mick Putman had grown up with his uncle Billy, so Mick'd know.

‘But he didn't take any lip about it, just like you don't,' Mick continued. ‘He tried to bash me up once when I called him a scrawny chook. About ten we were …'

‘
Tried
to! I did, you bugger.' Billy shoved Mick in the chest and Mick spilt some of his beer.

‘Watch it, mate.'

Two pretty girls walked past. In their twenties, just finished their ten-hour shift at Newlands Brothers factory in Riley Street. ‘Hello, love, fancy a beer?' Tim leered.

‘Want a fag, love?' Like lightning, Billy whipped out his silver cigarette case, the one he'd bought for a quid at Leibman's Pawnshop in Little Riley and which he kept buffed and gleaming always. He flipped it neatly open. Inside were the four perfectly rolled cigarettes reserved for such occasions, he never smoked them himself or offered them to the lads. ‘Help yourself,' he said, ‘do.'

The girls shared a snigger, not alarmed, not threatened, and not interested. These were boys, and the girls had beaus.

‘She looked back, did you see that, Mick?' Billy flipped the case closed and put it back in the pocket of his blue velvet jacket, ‘definitely interested.'

Tim was glad of the distraction. He was feeling a little self-conscious and didn't want to talk about his problem any more. But he was pleased that he had, he felt much better for it.

 

One Friday afternoon Tim asked his mate Ernie Morgan if he wanted to come and kick the footie around with Billy and Mick. The boys were sitting on the kerbside outside the pub, Tim waiting impatiently for Billy and Mick to finish their beers inside.

Ernie ignored the invitation, appearing not to hear it as he announced dramatically, ‘Horse isgoing to a two-up game tonight, and Billy and Mick are going with him. I heard the three of them talking.'

‘So what?'

Ernie Morgan was a solemn-faced boy with bulldog-like features which ran in the family, Horse was the same. A small punched-in nose, heavy jowls, and a thuggish jaw, Ernie had yet to grow into his face.

‘So what?' Tim repeated when Ernie remained mysteriously and irritatingly silent. ‘They often play two-up.' It was true, even when times were hard, money regularly changed hands on the toss of two pennies in a deserted warehouse or a lamp-lit alley.

‘Not in the Loo they don't. Not with the Dockers' Gang.'

‘Hell,' Tim said, and Ernie was gratified by the response.

‘Yep,' he nodded. ‘Midnight. Bottom of the Butler Stairs. There'll be a fight all right. Shall we go and watch?' Ernie's eyes
gleamed, he loved nothing more than to watch a good stoush. A bit of blood, the crunch of knuckle and bone, men wrestling in the mud. Ernie couldn't wait to be older.

But Tim was concerned. ‘Just the three of them? Just Horse and Billy and Mick? Going to a Dockers' two-up game?'

‘Yep. It's got nothing to do with the gang, Horse says. He's got a score to settle with Snaky Ryan, and he wants Billy and Mick for his seconds. I couldn't hear any more,' Ernie shrugged. ‘They shut up when they saw melistening and Horse belted me one on the ear.'

‘Rightio,' Tim said, trying to sound nonchalant. He'd go with Ernie to watch the midnight fight between Horse Morgan and Snaky Ryan, course he would. ‘Rightio,' he said again, and excitement blended with fear as he nodded his agreement.

Tim was not the only one with mixed feelings. As he crept out the front door of number 22 at half past eleven that night, Billy Kendall felt exactly the same way. He'd exchanged his sand-filled sock for a dagger. The blue-handled dagger which was his pride and joy, but which he rarely carried. He'd never knifed anyone and he didn't relish the prospect, but if others were carrying knives, then he needed to be prepared.

Mick was waiting for him out in the street. Collars up, hat brims down, they turned the corner and marched up Goulburn Street. Horse was standing on the corner of Goulburn and Brisbane, and as the three men walked in silence through the streets of Surry Hills, two small figures followed in the darkness.

Tim and Ernie knew the way to the Butler Stairs, but it was more exciting to follow their heroes going off to war. To fearlessly confront the enemy. Tim grinned at Ernie. Any trepidation he'd had was gone, this was the thrill of a lifetime.

The Butler Stairs linked Potts Point and Kings Cross with Wool loomooloo. Cut into the rock of the hillside, the Stairs led from fashionable Victoria Street, leafy and broad, to the working houses and cobblestones of Brougham Street far below.

During the day the Stairs were safe enough. Pedestrians used them as a convenient, albeittiring, short cut; children used them as a playground, and Chinamen with baskets full of produce hanging either side of the poles slung across their shoulders used them as a main thoroughfare, trudging laboriously up and down the endless stone steps.

At night it was a different matter. At night the Butler Stairs were a favourite meeting place for thieves and cutthroats, and members of the push planning a raid. The perfect place to be coshed and robbed if a man was foolish enough to walk alone.

At the base of the Stairs a metal arch linked the stone pillars on either side, and atop the arch in the very centre was a gas lamp. Tonight, however, Brougham Street was flooded with a far brighter light. Lanterns stood on the pavements and, amongst the crowd gathered for the game, several men held lamps aloft.

A canvas tarpaulin was spread on the ground, half bricks and lumps of gravel anchoring it at the corners and pieces of paling weighting down the sides. Two men stood in the centre and thirty or more others, wearing the trademark cloth caps of the Dockers, gathered around in a circle.

‘Come in spinner!' the boxer called when the side bets had been placed. Then he stood back whilst the other man in the centre of the ring tossed the coins from the wooden kip in his hand and the two pennies were sent spinning high in the air. The babble of chatter ceased. Lamps were raised. The onlookers watched in silence.

As the coins fell on the canvas, the boxer's assistant stepped in with his lantern. ‘No throw,' the boxer said when he saw the pennies, one heads, one tails, and the assistant nodded affirmation to the others.

The babble of voices started up again, and men swigged from bottles, rolled cigarettes or puffed on their cigars as they waited for the next spin.

Horse, Billy and Mick stood watching from their vantage point, ten yards or so up the hill of Brougham Street, their eyes raking the crowd for a sign of Snaky Ryan. Meanwhile, unnoticed, Tim and Ernie ducked around the side of the mob to crouch on the steps. Tucking themselves into the shadows, the boys huddled against the wall of the Stairs and waited in breathless anticipation.

‘Come in spinner!' the boxer called and the man with the kip stepped into the centre. He raised his arm chest high, and all eyes were on the narrow strip of wood he held in his hand, the two pennies resting on top. He lowered his hand, about to throw, then stopped mid-action, his gaze directed to the three men standing beyond the crowd, just up the hill.

‘Horse Morgan!' he called. ‘You've got a nerve.'

All heads turned, annoyed that the game had been momentarily halted.

‘Just my luck,' Horse muttered to the others. They'd been searching the crowd for Snaky and hadn't thought to look at the spinner.

‘What are you doing on our turf, you mongrels?' Snaky Ryan tipped the pennies into his left hand and started to cross the pit.

There were boos and snarls from the assembled men. ‘Shove off!' some of them growled at the intruders. ‘Go back to your rat holes.' But the rest were deriding Snaky. ‘Toss the bleeding things!' they yelled. ‘Sort it out later, Snaky, get back in the game!' There was money riding, and a few uninvited guests from a rival push were no reason to hold up play.

‘Come in spinner!' the boxer called above it all, trying to reestablish order.

Snaky Ryan stood undecided; he knew why Horse Morgan was there, and he was willing to do battle. But he had just one more pair of heads to spin before he could collect his winnings and pass the kip to the next man. Besides, he didn't fancy taking on his own angry mob if he held up the game. He'd sort out Horse Morgan later, he decided and, turning his back on the members of the Gipps Street Gang, returned to the centre of the pit.

Horse had a terrible temper when roused. Under normal circumstances he would have known better than to interrupt the play of a Dockers' two-up game, but he'd been boiling with rage for two whole days now. And the disdain with which Snaky turned his back and sauntered away was more than Horse could stand.

‘You keep your filthy paws off mysister!' Horse screamed at the top of his voice. ‘Do you hear me, you slimy bastard?'

In the split-second silence which followed, Billy and Mick exchanged glances. Horse's sister!

‘A matter of honour,' Horse had told them. He'd been no more explicit than that and, proud that he'd asked them to act as his seconds, they'd respected hisprivacy and the gravity of his cause, whatever it may be. But his sister? They should have guessed! Horse was always protecting the dubious honour of his only sister, regularly taking on any member of his own gang he thought was trifling with her virtue. But no-one took him seriously. No-one took his sister's virtue seriously, least of all his sister.

If Horse had left his challenge until Snaky Ryan had completed his run as spinner, or if Snaky had ignored the challenge and continued with the game, trouble would have been averted. But the gauntlet had been thrown and Snaky grabbed it. No man, particularly one from the Gipps Street Gang, called Snaky Ryan a slimy bastard.

Snaky hurled the kip and pennies into the crowd and charged across the pit. Bets, placed upon the ground in orderly fashion, were scattered as he dived through the mob to get at Horse. The game was disrupted and the Dockers screamed their angry abuse.

Knives glinted in the lamplight. The intruders were about to learn a serious lesson. Horse and Snaky were locked together, rolling on the ground, trying to strangle each other, and the irate men turned their attention on Billy and Mick.

‘Run, Mick!' Billy yelled, but Mick, knife drawn, had nowhere to go, and as Billy turned, he realised they were trapped. The Dockers had formed a circle and were taunting them with their knives.

Young Ernie Morgan and Tim Kendall had but one route of escape. ‘Come on!' Ernie yelled and he started to sprint up the Butler Stairs. Heart pumping, Tim followed, but before they reached the first landing they heard the cry from above.

‘Coppers!' the cockatoo standing lookout in Victoria Street yelled and, seconds later, a young member of the Dockers' Gang sprinted down the steps, nearly bowling them over. He stopped for an instant, surprised by the sight of the boys. ‘Coppers,' he said again, ‘move it,' and raced down into the street, Tim and Ernie following. Above them they could hear the shrill squeal of police whistles and the urgent sound of men's voices and the scuffle of boots at the top of the Stairs.

In Brougham Street, the warning had gone unheard. The Dockers were too busy trying to rally their humiliated leader—Horse Morgan was winning the fight. Giant hands around Snaky's throat, Horse was squeezing with all his might, whilst the surrounding men yelled for Snaky to fight back. But it was evident to all that the cause was lost.

Billy and Mick remained trapped in the circle of men, no longer the centre of attention but still unable to escape. If they tried, they copped another nick on the cheek or a slash to the arm. Their
jackets were already in shreds, their faces and hands bleeding. They stood together, powerless, watching the two men locked in combat. The mob would surely turn on them once Horse had defeated Snaky.