True History of the Kelly Gang (42 page)

As Mr Zinke wd. say time is of the essence daughter please excuse this scrawl.

The hop legged teacher call’d I shd. let him visit his home to fetch his special shoes he cd. not dance w/out them.

I joked that I wd. never let him escape so easy.

O I do not wish to miss this night he sd. then he put down his book & come to sit beside me. He were handsome & repulsive I cd. not take my eyes off him.

He—most people think the police have it coming to them.

Me—you are a v. uncommon schoolteacher Mr Curnow.

He—O I’m sure you know my opinions are quite usual in the colony.

I let him off the dancing but once he propped his twisted self against the bar I order’d all shd. sing a song including himself.

1st Mrs Jones’ little boy sang Colleen Das Cruitha Na Mo & then Steve sang The Rising of the Moon & then the voices join’d 1 × 1 even our volunteers on the hills cd. hear them as they watch’d the shining railway line.

Next I commanded the teacher he must stand & sing a song to class. He were such a proud strange creature every eye went to him he hobbled to the centre of the room standing with his hip jutted queerly out to hold his big book steady.

He—I have no song.

The people—sing sing.

He—but here is a little something suitable for the occasion.

To my horror he ripped 2 pages from his lovely book & then declaimed from them aloud he were a little milksop but when he recited he were reveal’d to be pure currency.

Here is the very words he spoke I pin them to the page as tore directly from his book.

he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a’ tiptoe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.

I do not know where that deep voice came from for the teacher’s normal manner were light as a reed bt. now he read to us his eyes afire his face that of a soldier by my side so did the priests rise up beside the common people in times of yore.

Those what listened sat on floor or table they wasnt well schooled it werent their fault but many cd. not write their names. Their clothes was worn the smell of the pigpen & the cow yd. was both present but their eyes burn’d with the necessary fire.

Constable Bracken were scowling but amongst the other faces there were astonishment for even if the meaning were not clear they cd. see a man of learning might compare us to a King & when in the middle of the poem Dan & Joe come back in from the night then all eyes went reverently to those armour’d men. Them boys was noble of true Australian coin.

This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin’s day.

When he finish’d there were a moment of silence & then Mrs Jones let out a great hooray & all the men was clapping & whistling & the little cripple were alight I pick’d him up & sat him on the bar he give me the 2 pages from his book.

He—a souvenir of battle.

Me—but you will do wt. you promised?

He—regarding your history? O I couldnt do it here Mr Kelly. I wd. need to take it to my house. I wd. need my books about me.

He waits. No time

THE SIEGE AT GLENROWAN

Thomas Curnow had entered the dragon’s lair, the benighted heart of everything rank and ignorant. He had danced with the devil himself and he had
flattered him and out-witted him as successfully as the hero of any fairy tale,
and now he carried the proof, the trophy, the rank untidy nest of paper beneath his arm. These stained “manuscripts” were disgusting to his touch and
his very skin shrank from their conceit and ignorance and yet he was a man
already triumphant. He had ripped out the creature’s bloody heart and he
would damn him now to hell.

He hurried towards his buggy. His legs would not work, they had never
worked. He could not dance or run. He could only hop and limp and when
he did so quickly, like this, it sent shooting pains up into his thighs and buttocks. He hurried through the cold clear eucalyptus night and as he came
around the south east corner of Mrs Jones’ hotel he overheard his character
discussed.

That teacher is a liar, he heard Joe Byrne cry. —He is a f–––––g fizgig.
Let me pink the b––––r, Ned.

Shut-up, said Dan. I hear a whistle.

Shut-up, said Steve Hart. It’s coming.

Dear God, let not the train come yet. Curnow dare not hurry and therefore took his horse and buggy home at a slow and easy pace. There were
mobs of men sitting amongst the dark trees, he felt them watch him, felt their
dull and resentful unlettered eyes. Dear God, let them not murder him.

At his cottage behind the schoolhouse he tapped on the door but his wife
would not withdraw the bolt.

For God’s sake, woman, let me in. It’s me, your husband.

Once she had admitted him she did not wish to let him go. She clung to
him and wept.

No, no, Thomas, they will kill you.

Good Lord, Jean, there are hundreds of policemen on their way to
death.

What will happen to me? she cried.

It was then he heard the whistle of the train, and he thrust the rat’s nest
of papers into her arms. He snatched up a candle and his wife’s red scarf.

He ran as best he could, down the gully beside the schoolhouse, then up
the embankment to the railway line which had always been there waiting for
him. And there it was, the head-lamp of the locomotive, the rails gleaming
like destiny itself.

The entire colony was cowed by Ned Kelly but Thomas Curnow lit the
candle, and while the frail flame flickered in the hostile air he held the red
scarf in front of it and he stood in plain clear view of whomever would take
his life.

The locomotive loomed, all steam and steel, and as the brakes screamed
and the steam gushed he screwed up his face waiting for the bullet in his
spine.

What is it? called the guard.

The Kellys, he cried.

And he had done it. It was history now. In a few minutes the train would
return to the station and disgorge its living cargo of thirty men and twenty
horses. He had saved them all. As he hurried home to his cottage the noise at
the station was terrific, men shouting, horses rearing and plunging from the
vans. Thomas Curnow heard them as he knocked urgently on his cottage
door and was admitted by his tearful wife.

In the confined space of Mrs Jones’ best room the members of the Kelly Gang
now donned their armour, clanging chests, bumping heads, gouging Mrs
Jones’ cedar table as they searched for carbines, pistols, ammunition. Of the
so-called hostages only one took this easy opportunity to escape and by the
time Ned Kelly came back into the bar to extinguish the lanterns and douse
the blazing fire, the long-bodied short-legged Constable Bracken was sprinting through the bush. He fell down the ditch and scrambled up the other
side, then he hurdled the fence which separated the shanty from the railway
line.

Bracken rushed out of the darkness. —The Kellys, they’re here.

He was bug-eyed, unshaven, out of breath. He pushed his way onto the
crowded chaotic platform but the Melbourne police did not know him, and
they were occupied with unloading fretful horses. No-one would pay him
any attention.

Meanwhile Ned Kelly stumbled through a different crowd, inside the
darkened shanty. He found the hallway, then the skillion. He emerged into
the night air, walking with the slow dream-like gait which was the necessary
consequence of the one hundred and twelve pounds of armour hidden
beneath his long oilskin coat. His grey mare was waiting and he mounted
with some very considerable difficulty and then ambled his horse two hundred yards down the track towards Glenrowan station. The police paid the
curious horseman no more attention than they paid to Bracken, whose
plaintive voice could be heard amidst the confusion of men and horses.

Where is the senior officer? Where is he?

Ned waited until Bracken had finally found Superintendent Hare, then
he turned back to the shanty.

As the police climbed the fence between the hotel and the railway line, three
ironclad men awaited them in the dark shadow of the front veranda. The
tallest of them, Joe Byrne, raised his rifle.

This f–––––g armour. I cannot b––––y sight my rifle.

Shut-up, they’ll hear you.

The police hurried through the open bushland not bothering to take
cover. At the point where Superintendent Hare finally paused, there was
nothing separating the two parties but a small revolving iron gate. They
were thirty yards apart.

Where is Ned? Dan Kelly whispered.

I’m here, boys. The older Kelly took up his place in the centre of the
veranda and raised his Colt revolving rifle.

And here’s your grandmother with her big iron nose. So saying, he fired.

Immediately, Hare fell.

Good gracious! he cried. I am hit the very first shot!

And then the cold night was suddenly ablaze with gunfire. The gang held
back in the deep shadow of the veranda, all except Ned Kelly, who stepped
out into the moonlight and took steady aim.

Fire away, you b––––y dogs. You can’t hurt us.

No sooner had he said this than a Martini-Henry bullet smashed
through his left arm. He grunted, turned, and then he felt the second shot rip
like a saw-blade through his foot. He turned and retreated to the hotel.

In the first minute the police fired sixty bullets and in the following half
hour they held their fire for no man or woman, child or outlaw, and when
they did finally relent for a moment the night air was rent with a high
dreadful shrieking. They had shot the boy who had sung “Colleen das
cruitha na mo.”

Thomas Curnow, sitting at his desk four hundred yards away, put his
hands across his ears.

What is that? his wife asked.

Nothing, nothing, go to bed.

Oh dear God, what have you done? Those poor hostages.

They’re not hostages, said Curnow, they are there because they’re with
the Kellys. They’re as bad as bandits.

But now she was the one trying to go out the door, already tying the red
scarf around her neck.

It’s a child, she said. Are they shooting children now?

Thomas Curnow limped across the room, and angrily pulling the scarf
away from her, he burned her neck and she cried out with pain.

God help you, girl, don’t you see, everyone is for the Kellys? You were born
here, Jean. Have you no idea what class of person you are dealing with?

You coward, she cried. They’re shooting children.

Me a coward? Oh dear Lord, who have I married? A coward is it? Then
who saved those policemen while you were weeping in your bed? Go to your
room.

What’s that?

Shut the curtain, it is a Chinese rocket. It is some kind of signal from the
Kellys. You had better pray there are enough police to win the day.

Another fusillade echoed round the valley and she came to him and took
his hands.

Oh Tom, what have you done?

What I have done, he said, is become a hero.

For a day and night the shanty had been a lively jolly place, but it was not
suitable as a fortress. The outer walls were one board thick, the inner ones no
more than paper and hessian, so now the hotel offered no more protection
than a Sunday dress. The bullets penetrated so easily and so often that those
inside could do no more than lie upon the floor and pray.

When Ned Kelly limped back inside it was pitch black and the air was
sour with cold wet smoke. The air was rent with the screams of young Jack
Jones. Hell itself could not be worse.

Ned, stop them. They’re murdering us!

I will.

He walked once more to the front door and was greeted with twenty
rounds.

I’m hit, cried a voice in the back room. God save us all.

Jack Jones shrieked, the bullet had broken his hip bone and penetrated
deep into his gut. A man pushed forward in the dark, the howling boy in his
arms.

Get out, Kelly, damn you, let me through.

Ned Kelly stepped aside.

It was the labourer, McHugh, and he stood in the open door holding a
white handkerchief in his left hand while he grasped the injured child in his
right.

Don’t fire, you mongrels, it’s a child.

Help me, cried Jack Jones.

The place is full of women and children! Stop firing!

There was one more shot but then silence, and McHugh walked out the
door. Mrs Jones followed. Immediately two shots rang out and she slumped
to her knees, her hand to her head.

I’m shot! she cried.

But it was only a graze, and she was able to crawl back along the floor and
lie behind her bar and there she remained, whimpering for her child.

No-one spoke to Ned Kelly in this time but he did not need to have his
responsibility pointed out. He could not protect these people against the
police, nor could he protect himself. It seemed there was no machine ever
invented that could protect these people from the forces God had placed
upon the earth.

Is that you, Ned? cried a voice from the hallway.

Is that you, Joe? Come here.

Come here be damned. What are you doing there?

Come here and load my rifle. I’m cooked.

So am I. Dear God, I think my leg is broken.

As Ned walked towards the voice he could feel the blood pooling in his
boot.

Leg be damned, Joe, you’ve got the use of your arms. Come with me and
load my rifle, come on, load for me! I’ll pink the b––––rs! Hare is finished.
We’ll soon finish the rest.

We’ve done these poor b––––rs an awful harm.

Well, we ain’t lost yet.

Joe Byrne did not answer.

Where are you? Ned began to kneel and then his leg collapsed, he fell
heavily. Immediately he began to crawl forward, scraping the heavy steel
cock-plate noisily along the floor. —Here, load my rifle. Joe?

With his good right hand he found Joe Byrne’s hand but it was limp and
bloody as a freshly skinned beast.

Joe?

He pulled himself closer and propped himself against the wall. In the
darkness he located his friend’s nose and mouth, then placed his hand across
them. The beard was soft and wet, the lips were warm against the palm but
all that fretful breath was still.

Oh Joe, I’m so sorry, old man.

Another hail of bullets ripped through the dark hotel, splintering wood
and breaking glass and causing the hostages to raise their voices in shouts of
anger.

Shoot them, Ned. Stop the b––––rs!

I will, I will.

He wrenched himself violently to his feet and stumbled back along the
hallway into the bar.

Dan? Steve?

He opened the door to the front room where he had, a short time before,
confidently laboured on his history. At that time he would see his child
again. At that time he would release his mother. At that time these people
would occupy their own land without fear or favour, but now the world was
a filthy mire and mess.

Dan?

They’re gone, said a voice in the darkness.

Not shot?

Your brother and his mate have left us. You must stop them cops, mate,
you have to stop them now for they are murdering us.

I will.

He stumbled out the back door and into the early dawn.

Intending to draw the police fire onto himself, he mounted his horse,
although with considerable difficulty. As he rode down the police flank, he
heard gunfire from the front veranda. He twisted painfully in the saddle and
then he realised Dan had not left at all. He and Steve Hart were standing
side by side on the veranda of the shanty blazing wildly at their foes.