The Hunt for Ned Kelly

by Sophie Masson

  My Australian Story

  THE HUNT FOR

  NED KELLY

  Sophie Masson

  To my parents, Georges and Gisele Masson, who gave me the book that first awakened my interest in Ned Kelly, when I was a kid.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The Diary of Jamie Ross Victoria, 1879–1880

  1879

  Historical Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  The Diary of Jamie Ross

  Victoria, 1879–1880

  1879

  Melbourne, July 22, 1879

  The thing we had expected happened this morning. They came early, thinking maybe to surprise us. But for days we had known they were coming. And so we were ready for them. The horse and buggy were safe at Uncle Will’s stables, the last camera, the tripod and the last few negative plates hidden in his straw. We only had one bundle each. Ellen said we should not carry more. In my bundle I put one change of clothes, a tin plate, tin mug, a knife and spoon, my three favourite books—Lorna Doone, Rob Roy, and The Three Musketeers—the photograph of Ma and Pa on their wedding day, two pencils and this diary. I do not know exactly what Ellen put in her bundle, but I can guess it was similar, only she has more clothes than I do, as in her new job she will be expected to look fresh and neat every day.

  And of course we had my little dog, Lorna. I would not leave her, not for anything. Pa gave her to me as a puppy two years ago; he had picked her up starving in the street. She was thin and jumpy then and she is sleek and jumpy now, but today she sat beside us as good as gold, not even whimpering. It is strange, but when the men—bailiffs, they are called—knocked on the door and demanded we open it, it was almost exciting. I thought, what would happen if we did not allow them in? Or if we sat there on our chairs not meekly waiting as we were, but with revolvers in our fists, bold and desperate outlaws like the Kelly gang, ready to make a stand? It is the kind of thing I only say to the blank page and not to Ellen, because she would say I have too much imagination and one day it will get me into big trouble.

  Of course we did no such thing. Ellen got up and opened the door and the chief bailiff showed her a document which said that due to our father owing so much money, all our belongings would be taken away and sold. And then the rest of them came in. That’s when Lorna sat up and her hackles rose and she started to bark and bark and growl horribly. I had to hold her back and speak softly to her as the men started carting away everything—the chairs, the tables, the lamp, the carpet, all our belongings, all that was left to us of our parents. Not that it amounted to a lot. Pa had pretty much lost most of it before he died, and not much was left of Ma’s things because she died a long time ago, when I was just a baby.

  They weren’t unkind to us, those men, though the chief bailiff did make us open our bundles to check we were not taking away anything we should not. He questioned Ellen about the camera, because it is by far the most valuable thing Pa owned, but she said that Pa had gambled it away too, only a little while before he died. She started to cry then and he looked sheepish and said gruffly, ‘Very well, Miss Ross, very well. But mind, if we find out otherwise, it will be a shame for you.’ She sniffed miserably and asked him in hurt tones if he thought she was a liar, and she and her dear little brother Jamie in such dire straits, orphans now after Pa’s untimely death, and anyway what would she, a poor weak young woman, do with a great big camera that would break her arms to lug around, even if she could use it?

  Ellen says she has no imagination, but she can be such a good play-actor when she wants! The bailiff wasn’t to know that the camera we salvaged wasn’t the big studio camera—that had been sold months ago—but Pa’s special, the one he’d won in a game of cards from a wealthy English photographer. It was of a most unusual type, the very latest thing, much lighter than most. The very thing for travelling, as the Englishman had boasted.

  Anyway, it was all right, the bailiff being one of those men whose suspicions stop working when a pretty young lady cries. He spoke in fatherly tones to me. ‘Well, young man, I hope you can contrive to look after your poor sister, now your father’s gone, eh?’

  I nodded, carefully not looking at Ellen. He patted me on the shoulder and tipped his hat to Ellen, saying, ‘Well, that is all then, and I thank you both for your cooperation and wish you the best in the future.’

  We thanked him too, in meek and cast-down tones, but as soon as he and his men were out of earshot, Ellen and I burst out laughing and danced a little jig and Lorna bounced around and barked happily. But very soon we sobered up because though we had won a small victory over the bailiffs, things had not changed for us much. We were still alone in the world, apart from Uncle Will. He is not really our blood uncle but the next best thing to it, for he is a childhood friend of Pa’s, and came over with him to Australia from Scotland when they were young.

  Though he is a kind man, his wife Aunt Julia is a tartar and a skinflint and would not hear of us staying more than a night or two with them. She said their house was too small and they were too busy. We were still penniless except for the small amount of money left over after paying for Pa’s funeral, because despite Aunt Julia’s urging, Ellen would not hear of selling the camera. And we still did not know if Ellen’s new employers, wealthy squatters from Wangaratta called Rochester, would really agree to housing the younger brother of their new governess. Ellen as a governess, teaching a brood of children! It still seems strange to me, though to tell the truth she is bossy enough to be a teacher.

  Ellen had shown Aunt Julia and Uncle Will the letter from Mrs Rochester which seemed to say I would be welcome, but Aunt Julia said she had her doubts. I had mine, too. But I said nothing, not to Ellen or to Aunt Julia.

  I will have to stop now because I can hear Aunt Julia coming up the stairs. She has probably seen the candlelight still burning and wants to scold me for wasting precious candles scribbling when I should be saying my prayers and thinking of ways to improve my character so as to improve my fortunes. Aunt Julia thinks that Ellen and I are both ‘wild as unbroken Highland ponies’, and that if we were hers, she’d have put a bridle on us long ago and taught us some manners. Well, I am as glad as I can be of anything that we are not hers, and in my prayers tonight I will certainly give thanks for that.

  On the road, July 23

  Am very tired tonight, so only a few words. We set off from Melbourne early this morning, with Lorna and the camera and our bundles and a few things Uncle Will gave us—bread and hard-boiled eggs and a meat pie, some flour and tea, a pannikin to boil water, possum-skin rugs to keep us warm, a clay bottle of ginger beer and a canvas waterbag which we can refill when we pass streams. Aunt Julia thought we were being thoroughly spoilt and said so. She said she did not see why we had to be loaded with things, and why we had to go with the horse and buggy when we could easily take the train to Wangaratta. Ellen said politely that she did not wish to start her new life by borrowing a good deal of money for the train fare when the buggy and Laddie are free, and besides, there was the camera. Light as it is, it is still heavy enough not to want to be lugging it in and out of public coaches or trains. Aunt Julia said again that in her opinion the blessed thing should be sold, it was nothing but a burden. She said it out of form only—she did not like the idea we might have asked to borrow money for the train!

  But when we left, Uncle Will slipped us some extra money while she wasn’t looking. He was a little worried at letting us go on our own on such a long trip. If it had been left to him he would have come with us to the Rochesters’, but Aunt Julia said he was needed at home and couldn’t go trotting around the
country as he pleased, not like some footloose young persons she knew. Normally Ellen would have said something about that, but she was just as keen that our uncle not come. She said that at nineteen and nearly thirteen we were plenty big and old enough and that we had Lorna too, who would protect us like a lion. Uncle Will harrumphed a bit but he is used to giving in to women—and so he let us do what we wanted in the end, only making us promise we would write to him as soon as we got to Wangaratta.

  The last thing Aunt Julia said to us was, ‘You must take great care, for Wangaratta is not far from the lair of those wild beasts, Ned Kelly and his friends.’

  Ellen laughed and said, ‘Do not be concerned, Aunt Julia, I am sure they would never dare show their faces in Wangaratta with all those police and good citizens roaming the streets.’

  We are camped tonight not very far out of Melbourne. Feeling rather hungry and cold, we ate most of our provisions. We will have to buy some more along the way. It feels strange to be out here. I wonder if the bailiffs will ever find out about the camera, and whether they will try to find us?

  On the road, July 25

  Tonight we stopped at a roadside inn, somewhere up-country. Ellen decided we might take a bed in an inn as it had come on to rain and making a camp in such dismal weather would not be good—mind you, not for us, but for the camera! I declare she loves that camera like her own child, though what the Rochesters will think when we are turned up with it, heaven only knows. I am not sure they will think it a good asset in a governess to be able to take pictures, but then maybe they will, I do not know. Ellen is a good photographer, Pa taught her well. He said I was not really suited to it, being too clumsy. He added quite kindly that I might do very well as a journalist or a writer of some sort, for, he said, I had a flair for words and I was always scribbling. He also said I had a gift for remembering things word for word, like a music-box or a parrot. It was a joke, but a compliment too. My pa was like that.

  There are quite a few people at the inn, including a party of troopers on their way home from the search parties hunting for the Kelly gang in the forests and wild hills of the north-east. Every trooper in Victoria has been after them since they killed three policemen last October. They seem sure that the notorious bushrangers will be caught, and very soon. They said the search parties are being scaled down and a new system of informers and spies being tried, to try to run the Kellys to ground. There is also a huge reward, which must surely attract information. Somebody asked if there had been any sightings of the gang recently, and one of the troopers said they’d been spotted by what he called a reliable witness just outside Wangaratta only a few days ago. I looked at Ellen sharply, remembering Aunt Julia’s warning. Ellen had laughed it off, and now here was this trooper saying quite a different thing! I wondered what Ellen would say.

  But she had not heard. She was busy gossiping with a girl of her age who was going down to Melbourne with her family. But I listened with all my ears, hoping to hear more news. Like I suppose most people—except Ellen, who does not seem to care a fig—I am agog at the doings of the Kelly gang. There are articles and stories about them everywhere, and posters announcing huge rewards for their capture, and people sing songs about them.

  To me they are like the characters in my favourite books: bold, daring outlaws with a price on their heads, like in Lorna Doone or Rob Roy. And they are close friends just like the three musketeers. There are even four of them, like there are four musketeers in that book really, not just three. And just like the musketeers, they hold out against scores of enemies. The four of them—Ned Kelly, his younger brother Dan, Ned’s best friend Joe Byrne and another friend, Steve Hart—are up against hundreds and hundreds of police and trackers and informers and reward-hunters who have been out hunting for them for months. But ‘one for all, and all for one’, they slip the net and roam the hills, wild and free.

  I know they are dark and desperate men, but I still wish sometimes I could live like that, wild and free with no Aunt Julia to scold you or Ellen to boss you or bailiff to steal from you. Lorna would come with me, she would be a bushranging dog. She looks like she has wild dog in her, dingo blood, and maybe living wild and free is her dream too.

  I never say anything like that to anyone of course, certainly not to Aunt Julia, but not even to Uncle Will or Ellen, because they would get angry. They would not understand. Pa might have, but Pa is dead and I will never see him again, not in this life. I have to get used to it, but sometimes it is hard. Missing him is like someone punched a hole in my chest. Sometimes it feels like the wind whistles through it and it makes me so cold.

  But there was no more news. The talk went on to other things and after a while I got tired and sleepy and went up to bed, Lorna following quietly at my heels. But Ellen was still downstairs, chatting and laughing with that girl. That is something I do not understand. What is it that girls find to say to each other for such a long time?

  On the road, July 26

  This morning the troopers were already gone when we arose. It was not raining anymore, though it was very chilly. The sky was a frosty blue, with the currawongs carolling in the trees. We put our possum-skin rugs over our knees as we set off on our way. Lorna sat at my feet, half under the possum-skin too. I think she felt in heaven there.

  Unlike yesterday, I was driving the buggy. I may not have the world’s best seat on a horse, but I am fair at driving. Ellen was navigating, holding a map across her knees and trying to puzzle out where the best place for crossing the river was. We made fairly good going, at least as far as our old horse Laddie can manage, and by evening we found a fine place to camp under some big gum trees. We soon had a fire going, and over it cooked the juicy chops Ellen had bought from the innkeeper. I made a damper with flour and water mixed together and cooked in the ashes, my very first damper ever. You could tell it was, but Ellen was very kind about it, and Lorna happily gobbled up the bits I gave her, along with the chop bones, which she crunched on for ages after. We had some tea and an apple each, and felt full and happy after that.

  It was very quiet in the moonlight. There were no other travellers around, and the only sounds were our voices and the rustles from the bush and the faraway whisper of the creek and Lorna’s shuffling. Ellen said that it was a beautiful night and that she wished she could take photographs in that light, but it would be too difficult. I asked her then what she was planning to do with the camera once we got to the Rochester station and she was silent a moment then shrugged and said she’d not really thought about it, she’d see.

  We had decided that we would take turns at keeping watch, just in case. I had the first watch. Ellen rolled herself in the possum-skin rug and fell asleep really quickly, and I sat by the fire, sometimes getting up to put more wood on it. Lorna lay at my feet, ears twitching, eyes half-closed, and I stroked her a little and drank in the wonderful sweep of stars—I have never seen such stars, they seem to fill your soul with cold silver fire!—and thought about outlaws living wild and free in the hills.

  On the road, July 28

  Something happened today which nearly spelled disaster for us, and if it had not been for the kindliness of passing strangers, we might still be in a fine pickle indeed!

  We had turned onto a track which Ellen thought might be a shortcut to Mansfield but which soon showed it was nothing of the sort, being overhung by scrub and clearly not much used. We had got off and were just trying to turn the buggy and Laddie around when the horse slipped on a patch of mud and the laden buggy tilted, swayed alarmingly, and fell, one wheel stuck in a deep hole on the side of the road.

  Laddie was struggling to right himself, but he could not, not when the buggy was dragging him down. Ellen and I managed at last to unharness him, but we were red and panting with the effort, and the buggy was still on its side. We would have to unload it to have any chance of getting it upright again.

  Luckily the precious camera and the few negative plates, snug in their lidded box padded with straw, were quite safe.
We lifted the box off, then the rest of our stuff. Everything was all right except for the eggs we’d bought only that morning from a farm we’d passed, and the clay bottle—both were smashed. We applied our shoulders and all of our strength trying to heave the buggy out of the hole. We puffed and panted and pushed and pulled, but the vehicle was stuck fast. There seemed to be no way we could shift it. Laddie watched us, seemingly unconcerned, cropping the grass a short distance away, but Lorna looked worried. She ran round and round the buggy as though she thought she could help. She did not even lick up the smashed eggs!

  It was getting near twilight. Soon it would be night and we would be stuck here on this lonely track with no help in sight and no good place to camp, with only the flour and tea and a little water, and not a stream in sight. I suddenly remembered reading once in a paper about some travellers finding bones strewn beside a broken cart on a lonely Victorian bush track. I was just wondering if that might happen to us when all of a sudden Lorna started growling. Her hackles rose, her eyes glowed.

  Someone—or something—was coming! Lorna stood stiffly on the track, her whole body tense with warning. Ellen and I didn’t move. We were too scared. We were trapped on that track: if we fled into the scrub, we’d lose everything, including our way, and probably our lives. If we stayed—who’s to know who or what we would meet.

  But then in the next instant they came around the corner. Two smartly dressed, bearded young men, one fair, one dark, riding fine horses, a bay and a grey. They seemed as surprised to see us as we were to see them. But they appeared to grasp the situation at once. Drawing rein, they jumped off their mounts and came towards us. Lorna growled warningly.