True History of the Kelly Gang Read online

  O have mercy Mr Kelly we give your letter to the police.

  I were stricken wordless Joe Byrne spoke in my place You are very effing brave Missus do you understand how brave you are? She shook her head watching fearfully as Joe Byrne drew the curtains shut.

  Do you know how long it took our Captain to write that letter how he laboured to put the facts down right?

  The government has possession of it now she cried aint that who you wrote it for Mr Kelly? It has gone where you intended it I’m sure.

  Joe turned up the wick on the lantern and with the bare room now brightly illuminated there were no disguising the fury in his eyes. This were a poisoned man his bowels was set hard as black cement and Mr Gill now understood there were no shield between himself and punishment he folded his hands in his lap waiting for the worst.

  Doubtless he considered himself a brave fellow to face the Kelly Gang but he were a coward to his trade as printer he were honour bound from ancient time to let the truth be told but instead he give it to its enemy. He were stupid as the government itself if he thought I could be stopped so easy.

  Ned said Joe you was a fool to trust these people.

  O no Sir no he werent Mrs Gill begun to cry to beg me not to kill them I told her if she read my letter she would know I were no murderer. As for her husband he were no more than a child breaking a spider web and the same web will be spun again tomorrow I could not be silenced.

  I imagined myself v. calm but Joe later told me the pupils of my eyes had turned an unholy red. Goodnight said I or so I’m told then turned and walked out of the window.

  That night the Kelly Gang made camp by light of rain & lightning strikes and while the boys lay quiet as dogs wrapped up in their coats I sat with my backside in a puddle my oilskin above my candle & my paper.

  I begun again they could not prevent it. I were the terror of the government being brung to life in the cauldron of the night.

  PARCEL TWELVE

  Conception and Construction of Armour

  Brown wrapping roughly cut into 30 rough pages (4‘ × 8‘ approx.), but unlike Parcel 11 these remain unbound. Considerably torn and stained. Text mostly drafted in lead pencil but some in blue ink.

  A belated celebration of his daughter’s birth. Winter in the high country of the Great Divide. The lineage of the Kelly armour is proven to be modern rather than mediaeval. An account of how the armour was made.

  IT IS ONE THING TO TOIL WITH YOUR PEN another thing entire to do it while you fight a war. In the autumn of 1879 I tried to once more write the 58 sheets stolen from me by the Gills I tore up pages then begun again by flooded creek by light of moon and when I had made such a mess my brain were addled I returned to this splashed & speckled history you now hold in your hand.

  I had boasted I were a spider they could not stop me spinning but that were in February and by the end of March I had to admit I could not repeat what I previously done. My Jerilderie Letter were lost forever.

  My daughter if I make mistakes of grammar now do not think yourself grander than your father but bear in mind the circumstances of composition in the autumn of 1879 Supt Hare & Detective Ward was always on our heels also those black trackers from Queensland was murderous demons they already butchered many men before they caught the scent of us.

  April passed then come the chilly rains of May we rode at night & slept by day all the while enduring such inconvenience as diarrhoea fever thrown shoes faintheartedness the flattery of spies & known informers.

  The June frost were early but there were still no word from Mary Hearn and Ellen Kelly were still interred inside her sunless cell no matter what vow I took. Ned Kelly were the most feared & famous outlaw in the colony but I cd. not get my mother an inch closer to her freedom.

  I had abandoned the letter to the government. I would of give up this very history too but I knew I would lose you if I stopped writing you would vanish and be swallowed by the maw. I see it now I were 1/2 mad but each day I wrote so you wd. read my words and I wrote to get you born.

  By the 2nd week of June I knew you must be arrived but no word come there was only frost & silence the southerly winds brought the lonely chill off the mountains at Bright & Mount Beauty. Dan caught bronchitis I lay my pen aside at last and bound up the pages in a parcel. When I tied the ribbon a great sadness entered like a worm into my heart.

  On June 20th of 1879 we come to collect our supplies as previously arranged riding down from the bush to the back of the village of Strath-bogie as we followed the frosty cowpads down towards the shanty I had the sight of a young woman running across the wintry white she were dressed in a black coat a bright blue hat and as she run she waved.

  Have you noticed how fair weather brings ill news? This were a beautiful bright morning with all the paddock sparkling with frost the butcher birds lined up on the fence their pretty singing filled me with foreboding.

  Telegram cried my sister Kate.

  I trotted to her side her nose & ears was red but her bright green eyes was shining she were not afraid. Telegram she cried again then give it to me.

  It is addressed to you Kate.

  Yes but its for you.

  My hands was freezing the paper v. warm for it had lately been steamed open then glued back the paste were still not dry. What is it?

  Read Ned read the thing.

  DAM AND FILLY AT PASTURE IN SAN FRANCISCO FEED IS PLENTIFUL.

  It is her?

  It is indeed.

  My daughter it were you. You was born. You was in a foreign land but safe at your mother’s breast I roared like a bull my breath burst forth & froze in that clean Australian air. Galloping in a circle round the paddock then a figure 8 I stood astride the mare one legged my pistols in my hands and all the boys stared they thought their moody Captain were finally insane.

  He is a da called Kate.

  Then what a show of riding they put on to welcome you and what a knees up promptly followed even if the porridge were still bubbling in the shanty pot.

  The Kellys are here. Barefoot boys ran through the frost a girl on a Timor pony set off to bring the word these was our friends. Our hard won money flowed like wheat from a broken bag.

  The police was in all the hills & towns about but the country were not theirs they had not the least notion of the celebration which now spread like yellow gorse across the hills. Joe Byrne sang Rose O’Connell and his great baritone echoed out across the paddocks even the daggy sheep even the wall eyed donkey heard that you was born. Steve danced a jig in the middle of the track he were nimble & pretty as a pony. Dan were quickly drunk he wrote your name upon his hand then swore an oath to sail and bring you back to where you did belong.

  These was your own own people girl I mean the good people of Greta & Moyhu & Euroa & Benalla who come drifting down the track all through the morn & afternoon & night. How was they told of your birth did the bush telegraph alert them I do not know only that they come the men the women with babies at their breast shivering kiddies with cotton coats their eyes slitted against the wind. They arrived in broken cart & drays they was of that type THE BENALLA ENSIGN named the most frightful class of people they couldnt afford to leave their cows & pigs but they done so because we was them and they was us and we had showed the world what convict blood could do. We proved there were no taint we was of true bone blood and beauty born.

  Through the dusk & icy starbright night them visitors continued to rise from the earth like winter oats their cold faces was soon pressed through doorway and window and even when the grog wore out they wd. not leave they come to touch my sleeve or clap my back they hitched great logs to their horses’ tails to drag them out beside the track. 6 fires these was your birthday candles shining in 200 eyes.

  There was spies amongst them that we must accept even the best merino must have its dung & dags but I wd. be no more muzzled by spies than by cowards like Mr Gill. The words must be said and say them I did beneath the dazzling Milky Way the skies spilled like broken cry
stal across the heavens. Upon a bullock dray I stood I never planned my speech or understood its consequences and when it was done I didnt even remember what I said except the government must deliver the innocent from gaol or else I were provoked to show some colonial stratagem. I had no idea what that might be but spoke the truth it would be worse than the rust in the wheat in Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers of New South Wales.

  The spies & fizgigs heard me they shook in their traitor’s boots. 2 days later the police struck again arresting my old mate Tom Lloyd the newspapers called him my loyal lieutenant and for that lofty crime he too were remanded to Beechworth Gaol.

  Having once more brung down the wrath of the traps on our supporters I thought it wisest to disappear from their districts for a short while.

  Taking Aaron Sherritt for a scout we journeyed to the shepherd’s hut up on the Bogong High Plains you will recall I said the walls was papered with words and pictures from THE ILLUSTRATED AUSTRALIAN NEWS they was tattered like old skin and very yellow often gnawed on by the mice.

  Aaron stayed for 2 nights flattering me that I were of colossal strength and I should be the ruler of the colony etc. he had a gormless wheedling smile he were more annoying than the rats inside the walls I were v. pleased when he returned to his selection.

  Soon there were heavy snow and our different scouts was sometimes unable to provision us and we was therefore reduced to eating a beloved horse but for a while we remained safe from the attentions of the world.

  It were during them winter storms we begun studying the paper on the walls my LORNA DOONE was long ago ruined in the Ovens River so there were not a great deal else to read but the news of 18 yr. before. The previous incumbent must of been a Yankee every page he pasted were about their Civil War I were often disappointed to find the outcome of a battle eaten by a mouse. I read from the floor to 6 ft. of height then constructed a kind of hurdle so as to get up under the rafters I come across the badly damaged likeness of a ship called the Virginia the southerners had clad it all with iron there were another ship the Monitor its bridge were like a tower forged of steel 1/2 in. thick an ironclad monster with a pair of 11 in. guns like the nostrils on a face. O that a man might smith himself into a warship of that pattern he could sail it to the gates of Beechworth & Melbourne Gaols. Blast down the doors. Smash the walls apart. No munition could injure him or tear his flesh he would be an engine like Great Cuchulainn in his war chariot they say it bristled with points of iron and narrow blades with hooks & straps & loops & cords.

  Steve Hart come to read beside me on the hurdle I told him this is what them Mollys should of worn yes this were the very seamstress he needed for his dresses. He were very taken by the fancy but Joe were out of opium he lay brooding on his cot and didnt hear me.

  Are you sick old man?

  Joe just rubbed at his legs but when Dan joined us upon the hurdle he suddenly had a great sarcastic spasm asking how we knew we was so effing safe to stand there reading.

  I reminded him there were 2 ft. of snow outside.

  He swung himself out of the crib and pulled on his boots he said we was all simpletons we had no idea of the forces brung against us.

  Steve made some mild remark for which Joe pulled him off the hurdle and offered to break his teeth and soon after he got on his horse and rode away.

  5 days later he returned his nose bright red from the cold his beard covered with frost & icicles. He wished to speak in private but I said he could speak freely before Steve and Dan so he begun to curse me saying I were the village idiot easily gammoned by Fitzpatrick or Harry Power or any knave who smiled at me. I was betrayed he said and did not know it.

  And who is the traitor?

  Perhaps its me he said. His eyelids was almost shut but there were such a fury visible he looked 1/2 mad. Perhaps I have been offered my life in exchange for yours.

  Who could offer that?

  Superintendent Hare.

  You talked to him he nabbed you?

  Not directly.

  Aaron is the go between?

  Joe sat down heavily upon the hurdle his face seized in his hands. O Jesus Ned he moaned I’m sick he looked up at me with his bloodshot eyes the icicles & frost was melting his beard were matted like a sorry dog.

  Aaron sets out with the police tomorrow night.

  Sets out for where?

  He swayed so far back upon the hurdle I reached out to steady him but he chopped my hand angrily aside.

  For here said he.

  There was silence in the hut as we all saw what had occurred.

  You done the right thing mate.

  O I wish to God I were not your adjectival mate he cried I don’t want what lies ahead.

  Dan were sitting in front of the fire with his back to us but now he stood his bright eyes shining from his dirty face this were a boy no longer but a Kelly burnt and hardened by the fates.

  Shut your hole he said you are our mate we won’t let you suffer.

  I seen the future said Joe every adjectival night I see the things that happen in my dreams.

  It aint you thats going to suffer its effing Sherritt he’s a dead man now.

  You wouldnt understand you mongrel he’s my mate he’s trying to save my life.

  Shutup I snapped at them I were the Captain and it were time to cease this endless bicker. Removing a piece of paper from my britches I lay it before Joe’s poisoned eyes.

  What is it he asked and turned it upside down.

  It is the pattern for the ironclad man.

  Who is he asks Joe.

  He is you said I he is a warrior he cannot die.

  It were Steve Hart who pointed out that the necessary material grew plentifully upon the land it might be as easily plucked as the pippins in Mrs Danaher’s orchard. He asked the riddle what strange crop is it that a poor man can harvest from the paddocks of the Greta district the fruit is steel 1/4 in. thick.

  The answer were the mouldboards of the farmers’ ploughs.

  So while the traitor Sherritt led Hare & Nicolson to the empty hut on the Bogong High Plains our mate Joe Byrne come with us back down to Greta he were sworn loyal till the death but I seen a better future now and there were no death involved.

  As soon as we was in our home district I ordered Steve & Dan bring in the crop of steel that may sound easy if you never wandered round a 1/2 ploughed paddock on a rainy night. Thus did the dragon collect its scales each morning more iron were lying in the muddy shallows of the Eleven Mile Creek.

  On my mother’s own selection I made the templates for the 1st ironclad suit I used fresh peeled stringybark just as women use the paper for a dress. I promised Joe he would not die and I made the 1st template to protect his sturdy body cutting the sheets of bark to allow his big arms play then I fashioned a flange to give protection at the shoulder.

  This won’t never work said he.

  Joe were sick so I didnt mind his complaints I used a lump of charcoal like a tailor uses chalk I traced the shape of a mouldboard it would take 2 cultivators to make the chestplate 2 more for the back. For his head I made a fort like the turret of the Monitor I made a thin crack so he might observe the destruction of his enemy no gun could hurt his tortured heart.

  By the time this 1st exemplar had been decided we had 7 mouldboards collected so the girls loaded 6 cwt. of charcoal onto a dray then delivered it behind Bald Hills. Here we set up our forge beside a little creek for anvil needing no more than the river gum we lay across the stream its cool water washing the timber all the while.

  The British Empire has steam & factories & thousands come to toil each day carrying out its orders it cannot imagine what we colonials have in store. We required no steam only a heavy hammer a chisel a punch also 3 pr. of tongs which we easily forged ourselves. The most difficult element were the labour it required all 4 of us and a full day from dawn to dusk. It were hot as Hell & twice as thirsty our bare arms and chests was tortured by pinprick burns each time we hammered the
scale flew up as thick as grasshoppers and when day’s end come we was freckled with small wounds but we had achieved our 1st Monitor and while the crows squalled & the parrots looped their lacy flight across the brittle paddocks we lowered 1 cwt. of wet steel onto Joe’s shoulders.

  It won’t work he said but I placed the helmet on his head and it fit him perfectly.

  The 3 of us stood back in silent veneration as the Soldier of Future Time turned his back to walk with steady tread there were a slight squeak from the cockplate swinging from its wires did ever such machine of war tread upon the earth before? It marched slowly & silently to the rise a mighty black shadow painted against the pale evening sky we seen its inky arm rise & point directly at his head.

  There were a powder flash a loud retort the turret jolted sideways by the blow. Joe Byrne had shot himself in the head he fell onto his knees and as we run up the hill his hands lifted the helmet and in the last cold light I could see his eyes.

  Shutup he said.

  I stood before him speechless.

  Shutup he said shutup it works I grant you.

  Joe were a very tough nut but not the only one next day I ordered Maggie and Kate to bring additional recruits. The British Empire had supplied me with no shortage of candidates these was men who had had their leases denied for no other crime than being our friends men forced to plant wheat then ruined by the rust men mangled upon the triangle of Van Diemen’s Land men with sons in gaol men who witnessed their hard won land taken up by squatters men perjured against and falsely gaoled men weary of constant impounding on & on each day without relent. Maggie & Kate led these troops to secret places and once they had swore their oath upon my Bible we showed them why they need no longer tremble before the law. We wasnt men with pikes no more and would not repeat the tragedies of Vinegar Hill or the Eureka Stockade.

  Throughout the spring & summer certain farmers did secretly construct their ironclads in the quiet gullies of the North East you might hear the lyre bird imitating the ching ching ching of the hammer striking blows. Them suits was made and buried in the soil awaiting resurrection.