by Judy Nunn
Knives glinted in the lamplight. The intruders were about to learn a serious lesson. Horse and Snaky were locked together, rolling on the ground, trying to strangle each other, and the irate men turned their attention on Billy and Mick.
‘Run, Mick!’ Billy yelled, but Mick, knife drawn, had nowhere to go, and as Billy turned, he realised they were trapped. The Dockers had formed a circle and were taunting them with their knives.
Young Ernie Morgan and Tim Kendall had but one route of escape. ‘Come on!’ Ernie yelled and he started to sprint up the Butler Stairs. Heart pumping, Tim followed, but before they reached the first landing they heard the cry from above.
‘Coppers!’ the cockatoo standing lookout in Victoria Street yelled and, seconds later, a young member of the Dockers’ Gang sprinted down the steps, nearly bowling them over. He stopped for an instant, surprised by the sight of the boys. ‘Coppers,’ he said again, ‘move it,’ and raced down into the street, Tim and Ernie following. Above them they could hear the shrill squeal of police whistles and the urgent sound of men’s voices and the scuffle of boots at the top of the Stairs.
In Brougham Street, the warning had gone unheard. The Dockers were too busy trying to rally their humiliated leader—Horse Morgan was winning the fight. Giant hands around Snaky’s throat, Horse was squeezing with all his might, whilst the surrounding men yelled for Snaky to fight back. But it was evident to all that the cause was lost.
Billy and Mick remained trapped in the circle of men, no longer the centre of attention but still unable to escape. If they tried, they copped another nick on the cheek or a slash to the arm. Their jackets were already in shreds, their faces and hands bleeding. They stood together, powerless, watching the two men locked in combat. The mob would surely turn on them once Horse had defeated Snaky.
‘Coppers!’ The young Docker burst through the mob. ‘Coppers! Coming down the Stairs!’
The warning had an instant effect. The police were the enemy of the push. Rival gangs had even been known to team up in the presence of theircommon foe. Men quickly sheathed their knives, snuffed their lamps and gathered their money which lay scattered on the ground.
Horse released his grip on Snaky Ryan.
Through the crowd, as it dispersed, young Ernie Morgan saw his brother on his knees. He couldn’t see the man lying on the ground. ‘Horse!’ he called, hoping his brother wasn’t hurt.
Horse turned.
Still on his back, Snaky fumbled inside his jacket for his knife. Ignoring the warning of police and the panic of men fleeing about him, Snaky was bent on one thing—revenge for hisdishonour. Horse Morgan would pay for the humiliation he’d suffered.
‘Horse!’ Ernie called again and, Tim Kendall beside him, he ran to his brother.
Amazed at the sight of the boys, Horse started to rise to his feet. As he did so, Snaky scrambled to one knee and lunged with the knife. Just as Ernie reached Horse.
The blade intended for Horse ripped through the boy’s back and into his heart. It took him only a second or so to die. His mouth was open. ‘Are you all right, Horse?’ he’d been about to say, and his eyes were wide with surprise as he crumpled into his brother’s arms.
It all happened in an instant. Billy Kendall and Mick Putman stood dumbfounded, staring as Horse clutched his dead brother. Young Tim Kendall stood staring at the shudder of Ernie’s head and the twitch of his body in its death throes.
‘Jesus Christ,’ the young Docker who’d called the warning whispered, ‘he’s only a kid.’
Then Horse let out a howl and dropped to his knees, cradling Ernie to him. As if his anguish were a signal, Brougham Street came alive. Police burst upon the scene, whistles squealing, truncheons flailing as men scuttled down alleys and slid behind open doorways of friendly houses. Snaky Ryan was the first to vanish into the night.
Mick Putman fled. Billy grabbed young Tim and made to follow, but Tim was rooted to the spot. He was staring down at Ernie lying in a pool of blood, big Horse Morgan kneeling beside him, rocking back and forth on his heels.
Billy looked about wildly. They were hemmed in. Police were coming from the other end of Brougham Street now.
‘Come with me.’ It was the young Docker, urging them to follow. Billy half dragged and half carried Tim as they ducked into Windeyer Street, a tiny lane which led into the heart of Woolloomooloo.
In a state of shock, Tim was a dead weight. Billy hoisted the boy over his shoulder as they dodged through alleys and laneways, stumbling now and then, the sound of police whistles sometimes nearby, sometimes from afar. They clambered through holes in fences and straddled low stone walls, they fought their way through lines of washing hanging in backyards, until Billy had lost all sense of direction.
Then, finally, they crossed a street, turned a corner and the young man made for a terrace house with a small porch and yellow shutters. ‘In here,’ he hissed, opening the front door and ushering Billy inside.
‘You’re safe here,’ he said, closing the door and drawing the living-room curtains. He lit the lamp in the wall bracket. ‘Put him down there,’ he gestured to the sofa. ‘How is he?’ he asked as Billy knelt beside Tim.
‘He’s in shock, I think.’
‘What’s going on?’ It was a woman’s voice. In her nightdress, she stood framed in the doorway, and even in the dim glow of the lamp Billy could tell she was beautiful.
‘There’s been an accident,’ the young man said. ‘The boy’s not hurt, but he’s in shock.’
The woman took control immediately. ‘Keep him warm,’ she said, ‘get a blanket,’ and she disappeared.
A minute or so later she reappeared, a lamp in one hand and a glass of brandy in the other. She set the lamp down on the table beside the sofa and sat next to Tim, forcing him to drink the fiery liquid. He was starting to shake now. ‘That’s a good sign,’ she said to the others. ‘Just one more sip.’ And then Tim started to cry.
‘He’ll be all right.’ She rose from the sofa. ‘I’m not so sure about you,’ she said to Billy. ‘Let’s have a look at those cuts.’
She pulled a chair up beside the table and Billy sat down gratefully, suddenly aware that he was feeling very shaky. ‘Thanks,’ he said, taking off his slouch hat and placing it beside him.
Whilst she fetched a bowl of water to bathe his wounds Billy looked closely at the young man for the first time. He was no older than Billy himself. Eighteen, nineteen, he couldn’t have been twenty. Dark-haired, heavy-browed, a brooding sort of face. ‘Thanks, mate,’ Billy said, ‘I’ll owe you for that.’
The young man took off his cloth cap and hung it on one of the brass pegs on the back of the door. ‘You were fools to turn up at the Dockers’ game. What did you think you were playing at?’ He’d recognised the slouch hats and bandanas—the badges of the Gipps Street Gang—the moment he’d seen Mick and Billy.
‘We were only there as seconds for Horse.’ Billy didn’t need a lecture, he was feeling decidedly sick. He looked with concern at Tim who was gulping for air. ‘You all right, mate?’
Tim nodded. He wished he could stop crying, he was trying his hardest, but no amount of air into his lungs seemed to help and he was starting to feel dizzy.
The woman returned. ‘Put your head between your knees,’ she said to Tim. Then to Billy: ‘This might sting a bit.’
Whilst she bathed the cuts on his face, Billy studied her. Late twenties, he guessed, and one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Far too classy for him, even Billy knew that. Full-bodied. Dark hair, loose to her shoulders. And amazing eyes. Such a vivid blue.
She was aware he was studying her. She was used to that. Young and old, most men did. ‘So what happened?’ she asked.
Before Billy could answer, a boy appeared in the doorway. Dark-haired like the woman and young man, he was dressed in his nightshirt.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked, blearily repeating his mother’s words, still half asleep.
‘This is my son.’ The woman ushered
the boy to the sofa. ‘This is Robbie,’ she said to Tim, ‘he’s seven, about your age, I reckon.’
Tim shook his head. He wanted to introduce himself, to say, ‘No, I’m nine.’ He tried desperately to stem his tears but to his embarrassment he couldn’t and, as he didn’t dare speak, he offered his hand instead.
Robbie shook it. ‘G’day,’ he said, bewildered but fascinated. The handshake was firm and the boy on the sofa didn’t look like a cry-baby. Something terrible must have happened.
‘This is Tim.’ Billy made the introduction. ‘And I’m Billy,’ he added, addressing the woman. ‘Billy Kendall.’
‘Kendall,’ she replied with sudden interest. ‘Where do you live?’
‘He’s one of the Gipps Street Gang,’ the young man said with a the touch of a sneer to his voice. ‘There were three of them there tonight. They busted the Dockers’ two-up game.’
The woman gave a shrug of annoyance—she had little time for the push. ‘You’re from Surry Hills then?’
Billy nodded.
One of the Surry Hills Kendalls, she thought. This must be Samuel and Beth’s boy. She’d not seen her father’s cousin and his wife since she was a child. She wondered whether she should tell him that they were related, but decided not to bother, there seemed no point.
‘I’m Kathleen.’ She held out her hand. ‘This is my brother Dan, and this is my son Robbie. Robbie O’Shea.’
The slaying of young Ernie Morgan shocked the push. But they closed ranks, as they always did upon police investigation and, despite numerous enquiries conducted around Woolloomooloo and Surry Hills, the boy’s death remained a mystery. The constabulary, while infuriated, were not surprised, accustomed as they were to the push’s code of silence. Even big Horse Morgan swore he hadn’t seen his brother’s murderer.
‘It was dark,’ he said, and they could get nothing more out of him.
Two weeks later, when Snaky Ryan was discovered in a Kings Cross alleyway, his throat cut from ear to ear, the police concluded that justice had been served and investigations came to a halt.
Billy Kendall, sickened by the child’s death, left the Gipps Street Gang. He applied for a job with the Wunderlich Company, his brother had been urging him to do so for years and, through Benjamin’s influence, Billy was quickly accepted. Gone now were the slouch hat and bandana, and he no longer carried a sock filled with sand in the pocket of his jacket. Billy still enjoyed his mates’ company, however, sharing a beer at the pub, kicking the footie around, accepting good-naturedly their ragging about his having gone soft.
Billy and Mick had told their families nothing. Their shredded clothing and the cuts to their faces and hands were the result of ‘a bit of a stoush with the Riley Street mob’. But when the police arrived on the doorstep, and they were summoned to Darlinghurst Station for questioning, it was obvious that Billy and Mick had both been there that terrible night.
Norah worried about young Tim, who was obviously affected by the news. ‘Well of course he knew the Morgan boy,’ she said to Beth, ‘they played footie together on Fridays, Timmy says. He’s so quiet. Keeps to himself all the time. It’s not like him, Beth, what should I do?’
‘Stop fretting, that’s what you should do. It’s not good for the baby.’ Norah was nearly seven months pregnant now and, healthy as she was, she became easily distressed. ‘Let the boy grieve for his friend,’ Beth said, ‘it’s only natural.’
Tim didn’t dare tell anyone of what he had seen, but he couldn’t erase the images which burned in his brain. Ernie’s mouth. Open, about to call a question. Ernie’s eyes. Startled, taken by surprise. And then the awful shuddering. First Ernie’s head, then his body, twitching, conceding its death.
Billy had tried to help. After the warning instructions. ‘Say nothing, Tim,’ he’d made Tim promise, ‘you’ve got to button your lip, not a word about that night.’ Then he’d said, ‘But you can talk to me. If you want to. Would it help?’
Tim shook his head. He wanted to talk. Desperately. But he couldn’t.
‘I wanted to say thank you,’ Billy said, holding out the bunch of flowers he’d bought from the Dutchman’s fruit and veg cart at the end of the street. It was a Saturday afternoon and he and Tim were paying a visit to Kathleen O’Shea.
Kathleen wiped her hands on her apron and, with just a touch of suspicion, took the flowers. Men who gave her flowers usually wanted something. Then she smiled, he was little more than a lad after all, and he wasn’t wearing his larrikin gear. He looked nice, she thought, clean-shaven, spruced up in his plain brown jacket and clean white shirt. And he’d brought the boy with him. Fair-haired, freckle-faced, the boy was more handsome than she’d realised.
‘Hello, Tim,’ she said.
‘I wanted to say thank you, too.’
‘Come inside, I’ll put the kettle on.’
They sat in the kitchen, a homey room not unlike their own with pots and utensils hanging from the walls, and Kathleen stoked the stove.
‘Robbie’s out the back,’ she said to Tim. ‘He’s got a puppy, do you want to go and look?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll call you both in when the tea’s ready.’ As the back door slapped shut behind him, she asked, ‘How’s he been?’
‘Hard to tell,’ Billy answered. ‘He keeps it locked up inside.’
‘Terrible thing for a young boy to see.’ She started to fill the kettle.
Billy nodded. She was even more beautiful in the daytime, he was thinking. In her apron, her thick, dark hair pinned untidily up, escaped tendrils resting against her slender neck as she bent over the sink. ‘Ernie was his friend.’
‘Oh.’ She turned around, concerned. And the vivid eyes, circled in the blackest of lashes, met his mesmerised stare.
‘Um …’ Billy looked away, caught out.
Kathleen laughed, she couldn’t help it, he was so blatant, and so gauche.
Billy didn’t mind. In fact he liked it. Hers was an honest laugh. He felt encouraged, maybe she found him attractive. He grinned back. ‘Sorry. Fair cop. I was staring.’
She changed the subject. ‘Do you know we’re related?’
‘What?’
‘Sort of. My grandmother was a Kendall.’
‘You’re having a lend of me.’
‘I’ll prove it.’ She put the kettle on the stove. ‘Stay there,’ she ordered and trotted upstairs.
Outside in the little backyard, Tim and Robbie were sitting on the ground playing with the pup, a mongrel of indeterminate breed.
‘He’s a stray,’ Robbie explained. ‘He followed me home from the park. At least that’s what I told Mum,’ he admitted. ‘I really got him from Johann, the Dutchie’s kid down the street. Their bitch had a litter and they drowned the rest. Mum reckons if he gets too big we can’t keep him, but I’ll get around her.’
The puppy jumped at Tim, smacking its skull against his nose. It hurt, but Tim laughed. For the first time in a month, briefly, the images had left him.
Robbie studied his new friend for a moment or so. There was something he’d been longing to ask. ‘I heard them talking about that night,’ he said. ‘You saw him die, didn’t you?’
The images were back. Tim held the pup at arm’s length as he stared at Robbie.
‘I heard them talking. They said he was only a kid. Only a kid our age.’ The heavy brow and the black eyes, in a face older than its years, were intense. ‘What was it like watching him die?’
The pup squirmed closer, Tim pushed it away, he didn’t want to play any more.
Robbie took the pup into his lap and stroked it gently, calming it. ‘Tell me,’ he said, sensing Tim’s reluctance. ‘We’ll share secrets. I’ve got a secret too. You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.’
‘He was my friend,’ Tim said, his voice a whisper.
‘Yeah.’ Robbie’s attention was riveted and his calming hand on the pup was lulling the animal to sleep. ‘That’d make it worse. Much worse.’
Inside
the kitchen Kathleen placed the heavy, leather-bound journal on the table and opened the cover. ‘There,’ she said, ‘see?’
Billy read out loud the childish hand. “‘This journal is the property of Hannah Kendall.”’
‘Hannah Kendall,’ Kathleen announced, ‘my grandmother.’
He was very aware of her shoulder touching his as she bent over the table, and he tried to keep his eyes from the generous swell of her breasts beneath the apron’s bib. He concentrated on the journal.
“‘Kathleen O’Shea,”’ he went on. “‘October, 1882.” And that’s you.’
‘That’s me.’
He turned the page.
‘No,’ she said, ‘that’s all.’ She closed the journal and picked it up. ‘It’s a woman’s diary, men aren’t supposed to read it.’
‘Oh, I see,’ his grin was suggestive, ‘we’re not supposed to read it but I bet it’s all about us.’ He gave a lecherous wriggle of his eyebrows, which was Billy’s way of flirting. ‘I bet old Hannah’s written a few things in there that’d make a bloke blush.’ He probably didn’t stand a chance, he thought, but what the hell, a man could only try. He wondered what had happened to Kathleen’s husband. Dead probably. She’d have to be a widow, no man would walk out on a woman like Kathleen O’Shea.
She bristled. ‘You think it’s all about men, do you?’
‘Yeah, it’s a woman’s diary.’ He was too naive to read the warnings.
‘It’s not about men at all,’ she replied tartly, ‘it’s about Sydney in the old days. These are stories told to my grandmother by her own grandfather, she wrote them all down.’
‘Oh.’ Put in his place, Billy looked dutifully chastened. ‘Sorry.’
Kathleen was defending neither her grandmother nor the diary; she herself would have enjoyed sharing her grandmother’s intimate girlish gossip. But the little she had read of the journal’s contents had in fact been rather heavy going, and she’d added nothing to its pages herself, apart from recording the deaths of her father and mother and the date of her son’s birth.