At my command she got down in the freezing water then I unwrapped the steaming baby from his shawl it were a shocking vision he had always been a hefty wombat but now his ribs was prominent his skin the colour of lamb fat in the river water.
O the poor darling she wailed as I baptised him holding him under his arms in the mountain water O dear Jesus it is a cruel thing to have a baby in this country.
I paid no attention to her keening for I knew this were exactly how our mother cured our fevers so now I passed the patient back to her then filled my hat and give him another dose onto the head.
It will kill him she cried her eyes was pooled with tears. O Jesus help me what will I do? The baby’s eyes was sunk his protest against the icy water were as weak & thin as paper.
I had no wish to torture a child but could not let my boys be captured and would never abandon this woman and baby unprotected in the bush.
By the time we come back to the hut it were clear he were much cooler his lips was blue so Mary wrapped him in the shawl then all 5 of us squatted round him looking down to see if he might improve. The boys was never short of an opinion but in this case all was silent. They didnt wish to be nabbed on account of a baby yet they was not cruel and it were jittery Joe who dipped his finger in water and put it in the baby’s mouth. If the fingernail were dirty George never minded he sucked it very hard. That very moment we clearly heard the sound of a horse or horses splashing through the river crossing.
Traps cried Dan then Joe violently jerked back his finger from the baby’s mouth. George of course begun to bawl Mary cooed at him but she were too slow for the circumstances so I licked my finger dipped it in the sugar bag and stuck my finger in the sucky mouth. The baby’s silence were as valuable as life itself.
Joe urgently racked a shell into the chamber and slipped out the door Steve were after him but messy Dan waited till now to fumble with his powder flask.
Come Mary I said I’ll put your finger in the sugar too.
But Mary cared only to hold her child and neglected the sugar. So my sugar finger must remain inside the mouth as we crabbed together with the baby on my left hand and my .577 cocked in my right. We edged beside a narrow tributary to a place where tall swordgrass covered the stream and here Mary lay down as in a grave & when I looked in her frightened eyes I knew we could not live like this no more I could not have her follow me as the wives followed their husbands into war in olden days.
A fright of blood red parrots flared & swept through the khaki forest.
Ahead of me some 20 yd. Joe jumped out from behind a grasstree he sprinted towards the river the Spencer in his hand. Racing after him I wondered would I ever lay eyes on my wife again then I seen Steve and Dan rising cautiously from behind a fallen log my ears was filled with my own crashing footsteps I ran through knee high bracken.
A single rider were now clearly visible through the scrub I stopped to raise my Enfield but then he kicked his horse forward and I seen it were Joe’s mate Aaron Sherritt. In his hand he held a small wooden box and it were towards this that Joe Byrne ran & I saw what I must of known before. He were both slave & lover to the Chinaman.
I did not like Aaron he were always whispering in Joe’s ear seeking out Joe’s eye making mention of this place & that time neither one the rest of us could ever know. The minute he come into our camp he took Joe down to the river where the pair of them indulged in the contents of that Chinese box and smoked their pipe and pickled their bodies with celestial taint. When he come back Aaron’s mocking mouth were smiling at us like he knew things he would not tell. And yet and yet and yet I cannot fault Aaron Sherritt he were as tough as nails a mighty bushman.
It were thanks to Aaron’s information we knew a small fire might be risked in the hut’s old fireplace and his gift of bacon & eggs could now be cooked. Mary sat alone on the single bench us men leaned against the dusty log walls smoking pipes & roll ups while Aaron poked peacefully at his frying bacon describing to us the various parties of armed police Captains Commissioners & Superintendents all the most important actors in the colony was in search of us daily racing from hut to hut along the roads across the open plains.
Aaron pulled a battered MELBOURNE ARGUS from his back pocket it were still a shock to see my name so famous. Aaron drew our attention to a squib it showed the Police Commissioner holding a dead possum with all his men arranged behind him as if they had slain a mighty lion the scene were set inside a settler’s hut and a mote of light streamed through a hole in the bark roof illuminating the dead marsupial. The engraving made no sense till we learned of the raid on the Sherritt family’s hut at Sebastopol this is now a famous story perhaps you heard it. Imagining he’d found the Kelly Gang’s headquarters the Commissioner let off a shotgun as he entered and so not only scared the pants off Aaron’s brother Jack but blasted a hole in the bark roof and killed the ringtailed possum. The caption to the drawing read A SAD CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
For a change the ARGUS had no cartoons of Superstitious Mick or Ignorant Bridget the Irish maid instead the pictures was of the coppers their point being they did not have the brains to find the Kellys. Here is one from MELBOURNE PUNCH I paste it down upon the page.
Whipper (who has never been beyond Keilor Plains): “I say, aint it shameful they don’t catch the Kellys? Why don’t the police jump on their horses and ride ’em down?”
Snapper (who has been as far as Dandenong): “No sir, you’re wrong—quite wrong—strategy, sir—strategy’s the thing—wait for ’em behind a tree!!”
After the Commissioner departed from the Sherritts’ he led the charge onto Joe Byrne’s mother’s property interrupting the old dame’s milking. Aaron had a long lazy jaw and laughing hazel eyes he told this story particularly to Joe he done it very comical performing Mrs Byrne’s Irish curses and Commissioner Standish retreating backwards from the bails and standing in a cow pat with his nice clean boots.
All Joe’s pains was gone he laughed but I began to see the storyteller did not really like me laughing too. I never thought Aaron very clever but always a good natured chap though today I observed a calculating quality about them merry eyes. Soon he abandoned his funny stories asking Joe to keep an eye on the bacon and do it like at Hodgson’s Creek whatever that meant. Can I have a word Ned?
His mouth were still making a smile but he didnt look at me till we come to a sandy patch beneath the ti tree. Here he squatted as a bushman will do then broke a stick and for a moment I believed he intended to draw a map.
Well he said I see you is very adjectival jolly.
I asked him what were eating him.
I aint talking against you.
You aint said nothing yet.
I got to be honest mate everyone knows the b– – – – rs will get you in the end everywhere I go they’re offering money for information. I want to keep Joe’s spirits up but only a fool can’t see how this will end.
I thanked him for his confidence though my sarcasm were wasted.
You should let go of Joe mate said he smiling.
I aint holding him Aaron.
He don’t deserve this punishment he didnt kill no one yet as you well know.
I am sure Joe will go if he wishes to.
You have a power over him Ned he don’t deserve this outcome.
What outcome might that be?
You know he said but he couldnt hold my eye.
Is that to mean that I deserve it Aaron?
Seeing he could not answer I set back off towards the hut.
Theres something else he called I seen he were holding out an envelope. Thinking it were Cameron’s reply I grabbed for what I thought an envelope but it were just a pale green square of paper speckled like a plover’s egg. I asked him what it were but he only shrugged.
Unfolding the paper I seen nothing but the words NED KELLY it were the slow hand of an individual not fully confident of their education. Whe
re is this from?
But I already knew the answer.
It is reckoned to be from your ma.
I seen how Ellen Kelly had secretly laboured upon that scrap and it pierced my heart that NED KELLY should serve not only as name & address but must carry all the weight of shame and subjugation teeming in her breast. Them b–––––ds would not give her paper she must of stole it & pencil both & when she were sent to walk back & forth alone in the yard of Melbourne Gaol she tied her message to a rock and threw it into the rockyard thus did young girls write love letters to their men.
Prison is a hard place the souls within it murderers or worse but them 2 words was carried by some unknown person to someone else unknown there were no gain to it only risk but even the lowest of them prisoners knew what were done against my mother were UNFAIR. The Queen of England should beware her prisons give a man a potent sense of justice.
One Monday morning Maggie come out of Mr Zinke’s office in Beechworth and there was waiting a hawknosed old lag with his brows pushed down hard upon his eyes he asked were she Maggie Skilling and give her the paper when she affirmed it.
Maggie soon passed the scrap to Aaron who handed it to me and the demand made of a son by them 2 words were clear. Now of course it were no single man standing in between me and my mother not only Bill Frost or George King but also the Governor the Premier & the Police Commissioner & Superintendents Nicolson & Hare and below them all the great pyramid of serfs Fitzpatrick & Hall & Flood nearly 100 of them to be defeated.
Telling Aaron to go back inside I cogitated by myself in the dank little clearing beside the King the ti tree scrub was hung with flotsam from the October floods the earth was moist with rotting bark scented with mud and eucalyptus. In that fragrant chapel with God as my witness I swore an oath that if Mr Cameron’s character were as Joe Byrne had warned and if he did not soon release my mother then I would burst the prison walls asunder and take her back myself.
As Aaron departed he done me the disservice of leaving Joe deep in useless dreams I told the boys they was to guard him and Mary and the baby while I went to find something for the dinner pot but that were not the truth I were set to devise a stratagem equal to my vow.
When I left the camp at Sandy Flat even the clouds seemed party to my confusion and for much of the day they hung low above my head the colour of dirty wool. I had not the least idea of where to look or what to do and even my horse showed pity treating me like she would a woman or a child. She were so sorry she refrained from pigrooting when I mounted.
All day we poked along through the maze of wild ridges me talking to her while her ears flicked back to listen but she had no better idea of what I should do next.
How I wished for a better man a Captain to advise me. My own father died when I were 12 yr. old the only boss I ever had were Harry Power and once I seen his feet of clay I left him far behind or so I thought. Yet as this dismal cloudy day wore on I finally understood I were still the apprentice and Harry were the master I were still following his rutted track. It were on account of him I knew this were a blind gully and that were the best spur to get me to the humpback ridge. Your Ignorance he called me when teaching me the secrets of the Strathbogies the Warbies & the Wombat Ranges. If you know the country he said then you will be a wild colonial boy forever.
This were untrue as were proved by his own arrest and incarceration in Pentridge Gaol but this were his path I loyally followed and if I pushed along the Buckland Spur till dusk why I might end up in Harry’s bolthole on the cliff above the Quinns and wake tomorrow morning with Supt Nicolson crashing on me like a grey box in a storm.
I reined in my mare but there were a patch of loose shale & she propped & slid with the crupper hard around her tail as she steadied on the ledge below. Beyond this precipice were a mighty sea now ridge after lonely ridge rolling all the way to Mount Cobbler and in this wild and roiling landscape I finally seen the truth.
The bush protected no one. It had been men who protected Harry and it were a man who betrayed him in the end. Harry always knew he must feed the poor he must poddy & flatter them he would be Rob Roy or Robin Hood he would retrieve the widow’s cattle from the pound and if the poor selectors ever suffered harassment or threats on his behalf he would make it up with a sheep or barrel of grog or fistful of sovereigns.
Harry were not captured because the traps suddenly learned his trails and hideouts he were arrested when he put a lower price on his freedom than the government were prepared to pay. The sad truth is the poor people’s love is cupboard love and all it took was £500 for the police to be led directly to his secret door.
Harry can be excused he never heard his own blood price but ours were advertised in every paper it was as well known as the price of stockmen £1 a week and drovers £40 a year the Kelly Gang were worth £800. I aint no scholar as I said but the arithmetic were simple we would muster £8,000 and scatter it around the district like water on the drought bare plains. This good news I brung back to camp but I were away too long it seemed too many hours had passed since Joe’s last smoke he now were sneezing & his nose were running and his good mood were all gone and he were once more out of temper with the world.
Kelly you are adjectival mad he cried slamming his fist onto the splintered table I will not effing do it I’m damned if I will I’ve gone too deep already.
In the silence that followed Mary quietly lit the lamp and once the yellow light washed up the cobwebbed walls it shone into Joe’s beard and I seen that flaw to his looks that harelip hidden deep in the shelter of his fair moustache. I will not rob a bank he said.
What are you frightened of asked Dan they are going to hang us anyway.
He were a brave little b––––r but I got his pimply beak and twisted him off his chair and down onto his bony knees I promise you I cried I promise all of youse that you will not be hanged.
You’ll not be hurt cried Mary she hung the lantern off the hook above the table. Not one of you brave boys will be harmed.
That’s very comforting said Joe Byrne are you a witch?
Mary put her nose against the baby’s head but her eyes never left Joe’s glare. You have my word she said.
Joe were famous as a ladies’ man in Beechworth he brought them gloves or stole them scarves there were nothing he did not know of how to make a woman happy but now he were pale and sick he had no charm. You’re barking mad he told my wife.
Shutup I told him.
You are both mad you too Ned you cannot break your mother out of Melbourne Gaol.
Well he never said he could cried Mary.
Yes but thats what he’s thinking. I know him girlie he loves his ma like nothing else.
Ned tell him you don’t think that Ned.
He couldnt do it said Joe not if he robbed 2 banks not if he had £100,000.
Don’t tell me what I’ll do Joe Byrne.
We’ve spilled their blood the only hope is California O Jesus he cried eff you Kelly just let me go.
I pursued him outside the sky were dusk white above the black umbrellas of the gums Joe Byrne had mighty thighs & calves he were noisy as a wombat crashing up the scrubby hill he were cursing eff and ess I followed him for 50 yd. the sticks was snapping like baby ribs beneath his angry boots. Then come a thick silence.
Even if you got a ship I called you’d have to grease the Captain’s palm also pay your passage Joe where else would we get the money but from a bank?
I aint afraid of dying he said at last then I made out his lumpy shape he were sitting on a stump or rock or fallen tree.
This plan don’t call for dying.
I won’t kill I have enough bad dreams already.
Or killing neither.
A long silence from us while the kookaburra gave its last call for the night.
Just let your ma serve out her term it aint so long. We both done as much time in prison and it hasnt killed us yet.
But I were not prepared to debate with him about my obligations they
was no less to my mother than to him. I took a noisy step or 2 towards him and he backed away. Go back to Aaron but don’t whine like a yellow cur.
I aint leaving said the maddening b––––r don’t you know why?
I did not answer when he spoke again there were a tremor in his voice. Ned you are as good a man as I ever known. He come through the dark putting his clammy grip upon my arm. I am your mate he said thats my bad luck.
He were Aaron’s mate I thought thats worse luck still. We walked to the hut no one spoke until our eyes was naked in the candle light.
I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you he said I’ll go to Benalla and inspect the bank.
He’ll inspect some opium I thought.
You don’t have to come back Joe you could send word.
Thank you Ned he said engaging himself urgently with his tobacco pouch.
Later while he saddled his bay I stood waiting in the blue night with Steve and Dan. Joe said we soon would know how the bank were guarded and the most profitable day to rob it I did not expect nothing of him now. When he mounted he done the unusual thing of leaning down to shake my hand.
Don’t kick no one in the knees I said.
In the bawbles more like it.
I waited until the soft clomp of the hooves could be heard no more then I also parted from the youngsters it were me towards the hut Steve and Dan to keep the 1st watch of the night together.
Inside the hut I could hear George’s snotty milky breathing I were melancholy.
Dear asked Mary.
Yes?
I have been wondering if grumpy Joe is so mistaken. Why should we not all sail to America?
O Jesus Mary we have no money Mary we have to rob the bank to get the money if we are to get away.
But when we have the money dear?
Well 1st we have to rob the bank Mary there aint no avoiding it.
This were the moment our misunderstanding begun I were not ready to discuss how the money would be used I were thinking only how to rob the bank without the boys being killed. But your mother had travelled many miles beyond that place she already had the sea spray on her cheeks.