Black Snake

by Carole Wilkinson

  “This sort of cruelty and disgraceful conduct to my brothers and sisters who had no protection coupled with the conviction of my Mother and those innocent men certainly made my blood boil…”

  Ned explains his growing anger with the police, Cameron Letter

  Double Agent

  While friends and relatives spied on the police and let the gang know what they were up to, the police were trying to find people to spy for them. One man they approached seemed willing to do the job. His name was Aaron Sherritt. He had been Joe Byrne’s good friend for many years and he had been with the gang in their stock-stealing days. Some policemen didn’t believe that he would really betray his friends.

  At the same time Aaron was one of the gang’s most trusted friends. He gave them information about the police and their movements. Ned had faith in Aaron’s loyalty to the gang.

  Though Joe and Ned trusted him completely, other friends of the gang were starting to get suspicious. They had heard that Aaron was being paid well by the police for information. With the money from the Jerilderie bank robbery all used up, there was no money coming from the Kelly Gang. Whose side was Aaron really on?

  Rumours were spreading that Aaron was threatening to kill Joe. The police fed the rumours and started a dispute between the Sherritt and Byrne families. Eventually Joe was convinced that his friend couldn’t be trusted. If he was a traitor, Aaron would have to die. Joe went to Aaron’s house and shot his friend dead. There were four policemen hiding in the house at the time, waiting for just such a visit. When they heard the shots fired, they stayed where they were, hiding in the bedroom. Joe rode away and no one followed him.

  Pity the Police

  Much has been said about the cowardliness of the police during the Kelly hunt. The senior officers of the police force were unpopular with poor selectors. The officers were wealthy and privileged and on the side of the squatters. Ordinary police were simple men, often Irish like the Kellys, who had been ordered to look after the interests of the squatters before the selectors. They were not well equipped. Their guns were not the best available. After three years training in the artillery corps in Melbourne, recruits were sent to postings all over the colony, so they were not familiar with the area they were working in. They didn’t have knowledge of the local geography, unlike the Kellys who knew the bush like the backs of their hands. Many police were from the city, unfamiliar with, even afraid of, the bush.

  The policemen cowering in Aaron Sherritt’s bedroom had heard the Kelly Gang stories. They knew the Kellys had gunned down their fellow officers when the officers had fought back. They had just witnessed Joe Byrne executing his one-time friend. They knew that if they burst out and attacked the bushrangers standing at the door, there would be bloodshed—more than likely their own.

  Literary Inspiration

  While the gang was on the run the hours must often have seemed very long. But it seems that one of the things that Ned did to pass the time was to read. Joe was undoubtedly the most well read of the gang, but there is evidence that Ned read as well. Historians claim that one of Ned’s favourite books was Lorna Doone. This book is about a family of outlaws who terrorised an area in England called Exmoor. They rode around the countryside with their horses laden with plunder and wearing iron plates on their breasts and heads to protect themselves from their enemies. It is believed that Ned got the inspiration for his strangest idea from the pages of books like this and Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, a story about a 12th century knight. He decided that for their next exploit, the gang would all wear armour.

  A reward poster offering £8000 for the capture of the Kelly Gang.

  10. Taken Alive

  What if you were there...

  The train rattled northwards at a tremendous speed, steaming blindly into the darkness. It was going so fast it seemed it might jump off the rails. I shivered, whether with cold or fear I don’t care to say. I was beginning the biggest adventure of my life.

  I work at the Argus. Most of the time I’m running to get sandwiches or grog for the reporters. Sometimes I might get to carry some equipment for the photographer. I’d like to be a pressman myself one day—a crime reporter, at the scene of the crime, interviewing policemen and tearful lady witnesses. One day.

  I was in the copy room last night, just about to go home, when I heard the buzz. A telegram had just arrived from Beechworth. The Kellys were holding up an inn at Glenrowan. A special police train was leaving Melbourne in half an hour. I didn’t go home. Instead I ran to the railway station. The engine was just building up steam. When no one was looking, I jumped on the train and hid in the baggage compartment.

  We stopped twice along the way to pick up policemen, the last time at Benalla. The train had just picked up speed again, when it suddenly slowed. My legs were cramped, so I got up to walk around and peered out of the window. I could see a strange red light ahead waving back and forth. The engine driver was calling out. I could tell from his voice that he was afraid. I thought, “It’s the Kellys. They’re holding up the train.” The train stopped. A young man with blond hair lowered the candle he had been holding behind a red lady’s scarf to get the driver’s attention. He was very agitated, shouting something about the Kellys and the line being torn up.

  The train started off again, slowly this time. We didn’t go far. In a short time we pulled into Glenrowan station. There was a tremendous noise and clatter as the policemen got their nervous horses out of the horse van. There was so much noise and confusion on the platform that no one noticed when I crept off the train. I thought we’d be in for a long wait, but I had hardly got off the train when I heard the crack of gunfire. I ran in the direction of the sound and soon came across two policemen supporting a tall man who was bleeding from the wrist.

  “I’ve been hit,” he was saying. “The very first shot.”

  The police were taking up positions outside the inn. A voice was shouting from the building. “Fire away, you miserable dogs. You can’t hurt us.” It was a strange hollow voice. I moved to the side of the inn, where I could see everything but stay well out of the line of fire. The gunfire continued until the night air was thick with smoke. Then a figure emerged from the darkness of the inn’s verandah out into the smoky moonlight. I had never seen anything like it before. It was a huge figure. It walked towards the police with an unnatural stiffness. It had a massive head growing from its shoulders. The monster was carrying a gun in each hand and as it advanced, it fired at the police. It banged one revolver on its chest and then on its infernal head. The sound rang out as if some demon were beating an enormous cracked kettle with an iron spoon.

  The police shot at the monster, but the bullets just bounced off it. It staggered a little when bullets bounced off its head, only to recover and keep walking. Drops of thick black liquid left a trail behind it.

  I froze in fear as the figure changed direction. It was coming towards me. I had an awful feeling it could smell me in the darkness. I crawled through the undergrowth, but the creature kept following me. Then, when it had the cover of a large tree, it sank to the ground. It was no more than two yards away from me. I watched in horror as the monster reached up and removed its huge head. Then I saw that it wasn’t a monster at all. It was a man who’d been wearing an iron helmet shaped like an upturned nail can. Beneath the helmet was a bruised and bloody face. In the moonlight, I saw that the liquid trailing from its arm wasn’t black, it was dark red. It was blood. It wasn’t a monster, it was a human being. It was Ned Kelly himself.

  Billy Walsh, errand boy, the Argus newspaper

  Bush Knights

  The armour that the gang made was constructed from ploughshares—the curved blades on ploughs which push back the earth to make furrows. These were made from iron almost a centimetre thick. With the help of willing blacksmiths, four suits of armour were made. They each consisted of a breastplate, a back plate and shoulder guards. The breastplate had a flap of iron strapped to the bottom like an apron to protect the groin. The
head was protected by a large cylindrical helmet that rested on the shoulders, covering the face entirely, except for a slit for the eyes.

  Ruthless Plan

  Ned’s third and final plan was different from his other two. This final campaign started with the cold-blooded murder of a one-time friend. Ned knew that once news of Aaron Sherritt’s death spread, police would move in on the area. The murder had taken place on a Saturday night. There would be no more trains running until Monday morning. The only train coming up the line would be a special train full of policemen. This was Ned’s target. The gang rode to the small town of Glenrowan and took over one of the town’s hotels.

  Ned’s first job at Glenrowan was to take up some of the railway tracks. To do this he needed the help of railway repairmen who were camped close by. The section of track they chose was at the top of a steep gully. It seemed that the gang was planning to derail the train and send it, and the police inside, crashing to the bottom.

  Ned was expecting that the police hiding in Aaron’s hut would raise the alarm immediately. They didn’t. They stayed hidden in the hut until daylight. Even then, well-meaning supporters of the Kelly Gang stopped messengers riding with the news to Beechworth. In the past, the slow response of the police had helped the gang. This time it was to lead to their undoing.

  Fun and Games

  The gang made themselves comfortable at the Glenrowan Inn and waited for the train. Meanwhile they were collecting up a crowd of prisoners. As well as the railway repairmen, there was the stationmaster and his family, the schoolteacher and his family and the town’s one policeman, Constable Bracken. Throughout the following day, the number of prisoners swelled to over 60. Ned looked after his “guests” in his usual way. To stop them getting bored he organised dancing and sports competitions. All of the Kelly Gang joined in these activities. One of the prisoners taught Ned the steps to a dance called the quadrille. As they were in a hotel, there was also a great deal of drinking. The prisoners enjoyed the outlaws’ hospitality late into the night.

  The train was overdue. Ned let some of his prisoners go home, including the schoolteacher, Thomas Curnow, who Ned had grown to trust during the course of the night. It was after 2 a.m.—now more than 24 hours since Aaron’s death. The gang hadn’t had any sleep for two nights. Ned was beginning to think that the police train was never coming. He had just told the remaining 40-odd prisoners they could go home, when he heard a train whistle. The prisoners were ushered back into the hotel and locked in. The gang then got into their armour.

  Trust Betrayed

  Instead of steaming through the town to its destruction, the train had stopped at Glenrowan station. The schoolteacher, Thomas Curnow, had not gone home, but had gone instead to warn the train. Constable Bracken escaped from the hotel and ran to tell the police of the Kelly Gang’s murderous plans. On the train was a troop of 24 police and trackers led by Superintendent Hare, the policeman now in charge of the Kelly Hunt. The police quickly got off the train and surrounded the hotel. The gang were on the verandah shrouded in darkness.

  Ned fired the first shot. It hit Superintendent Hare in the wrist. The commander of the assault fainted and was taken away to Benalla for treatment. From the first moments, the police were without a leader.

  Ned moved out from the verandah into the moonlight. Sleep deprived, possibly having drunk too much whisky, he walked out in front of the police, believing that his armour would protect him. This was the first the police had seen of Ned in his armour. It was a frightening sight. They couldn’t work out what it was that was prowling around in the moonlight with a gun in each hand. Ned wore a long oilskin coat over the top of his armour adding to his unearthly appearance. Some police thought it was a ghost, others a madman. Whatever it was, they fired at it. Their shots seemed to bounce off the weird creature. Perhaps it was the devil himself.

  The armour made Ned feel invincible, but it only protected him where it covered his body. His legs and arms were unprotected.

  Bloodshed

  Ned was soon hit in his left arm and in his right foot. Just as the police leader had been, the Kelly Gang’s leader was seriously wounded in the first minutes of the gunfight.

  The police were firing furiously at the inn without a thought for the unfortunate prisoners inside. Women and children were screaming. There were not only screams of fear, but terrible screams of pain. Four civilians were shot in the volley of police fire, including two children. Three of these victims died from their wounds. Joe was also hit in the leg. After Joe was shot, he retreated with Dan and Steve into the inn for cover. Ned, bleeding badly and in a state of shock, continued to wander around outside.

  In a lull in the firing, the terrified women and children tried to escape. They called to police not to fire, but their pleas were ignored and a hail of bullets drove them back. A bullet grazed a baby’s head.

  Towards dawn, Sergeant Steele arrived from Wangaratta with more police. He leapt off his horse, eager to get into the fight. As the hostages tried again to make their escape, the overzealous Steele fired wildly at them, even though other police tried to stop him. Another civilian, a young man of 18, was wounded.

  Ned was losing an enormous amount of blood. He limped back to the hotel and arrived to see his best friend Joe shot dead. Believing that Dan and Steve had escaped, Ned found a horse to make his own escape. Weak from loss of blood and weighed down by his armour, he couldn’t mount the horse.

  Death in the Morning

  Ned called out to Dan and heard a faint reply from the inn. He realised his mistake. His brother and Steve Hart were still in the hotel. The police continued to shoot at Ned, wounding him again and again as he tried to make his way back to the inn to rescue Dan and Steve. As he staggered to the cover of a fallen tree, the police called out for him to surrender, but he refused.

  Finally a shot in the leg brought Ned crashing to the ground. The police rushed to overcome him, grabbing his revolver. With 28 wounds in his body and after bleeding for more than four hours, Ned was unable to fight back. The police took off the helmet and only then realised they had captured Ned Kelly himself. Sergeant Steele moved in to finish him off, but Constable Bracken stopped him. Ned was carried away and into custody.

  By this time, Superintendent Sadleir had arrived from Benalla. Surely now, with proper leadership, the police would finish the matter swiftly. But that was not the case. The next morning the last of the prisoners finally got away from the inn. There were now 50 policemen against two outlaws. Still the police waited. Sadleir ordered a cannon to be sent up from Melbourne to attack the tiny weatherboard inn. The inn was silent. Neither Dan nor Steve were returning fire. Still Sadleir waited.

  At about three in the afternoon, Constable Johnson ran out of patience with his superior officer. He pointed out that a splash of kerosene and a match would quickly do as much damage as a cannon to the flimsy wooden building. He calmly walked forward and set light to the inn. Timid to the last, the other police still stayed back.

  Hundreds of people had gathered to watch the drama unfold. They cheered as a priest strode forward and entered the burning building. He saw Joe dead in the bar. In a back room he found Dan and Steve, also lying dead on the floor. He called out the news to the police who just had time to pull Joe’s body from the flames. The inn, with a calico ceiling and paper-lined walls, was a firetrap. It was destroyed in a few minutes.

  The bodies of Dan and Steve were burnt beyond recognition. Whether they were shot by police bullets or whether they shot each other to avoid capture, no one knows.

  When Ned’s pockets were searched, they were found to contain a lady’s watch, two gold chains, some ammunition and a threepence.

  The doctor tending to Ned’s wounds took off his armour and discovered that around his waist he was wearing a green silk sash with a gold fringe. It was the sash he had been awarded for rescuing Dick Shelton from drowning when he was only 11 years old.

  When Joe Byrne’s body was searched, he was found to be c
arrying a prayer book in one pocket and a brown paper bag of poison in the other. On his fingers, he wore the rings belonging to Michael Scanlon, one of the policemen killed at Stringybark Creek.

  Newspaper reporters tied Joe’s dead body to a door so that photos could be taken. Postcards carrying photos of the dead bushranger were sold as souvenirs.

  Disaster and Defeat

  Ned’s first two bold hold-ups had worked like a dream. His third and final plan had turned into a nightmare. Ned was captured. His brother and best friend were killed. Four innocent townspeople also died.

  Just what Ned’s aim was at Glenrowan is hard to fathom. The bushrangers had brought a keg of blasting powder and a coil of fuse with them. Witnesses noticed crowds of armed sympathisers gathering during the night. At one stage, Chinese skyrockets were let off as some sort of signal. There was no bank in the small town of Glenrowan. Whatever they were planning, it was more than a simple bank robbery.

  Ned is reported as saying he wanted to send the train and police “to hell”. There is one theory that the destruction of the police train would mark the beginning of a bold plan to take control of the government of North Eastern Victoria and that Ned planned to form a republic, with himself as leader. Another plan may have been to rally their supporters and raid a number of banks in the area. Later Ned said he had no intention of derailing the train, merely stopping it so that he could take police hostages to trade for his mother. Whatever Ned’s intentions, Glenrowan was a disaster. After nearly two years on the run, the Kelly Gang had finally met its end.

  After the Glenrowan shoot-out, the suits of Kelly armour became the property of three different organisations and one individual. Historians examined the four suits and found that the pieces of three of the suits were mixed up. In June 2002, the custodians of the three suits—the National Trust of Australia, the State Library of Victoria and the Police Museum—got together and exchanged pieces so that there are now three complete original suits of armour.