A Cold Wind Down the Grey

by Wendy M Wilson

  “Did they catch all of them, the men who did the murders? The Burgess gang?”

  “They did, and they were all tried…”

  “How many people did they kill?” asked Crozier.

  “Four in Nelson and George Dobson in Greymouth, possibly a few more,” said James, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. “At the time, everyone thought they’d killed dozens. Sullivan even said that he’d heard Burgess say he’d killed dozens, but we never found more than a few bodies—oh, and I forgot about Old Jamie, so that would be five in Nelson, or just outside Nelson on the Maungatapu trail between Canvastown and Nelson.”

  Old Jamie. Funny thing that. At the time he’d thought it reasonable that the prospector who had been found first should always be known as Old Jamie. Later he’d discovered that Jamie Battle had been fifty-two; in retrospect that seemed like the age of a man in his prime, not an old man. And what a fighter he’d been. He wasn’t a wealthy man, but had been working at an accommodation house cutting flax near Canvastown. He’d left the job to move on, and been paid a little more than three pounds for his efforts. He’d been found not far from the other bodies, face-down, partially buried under a pile of leaves and dirt, his body in a terrible condition. There were signs that he had fought back against his attackers, and Sullivan and Burgess confirmed that he had.

  When Battle encountered the gang, Burgess said later in his deathbed confession, he looked more like a man who needed a good loaf of bread than someone who had gold in his pocket, but they killed him anyway after Burgess saw him move his knife around in his pocket, looking as though he suspected them of something. Burgess held a gun to his head and demanded any money he might be hiding in his poke, and Old Jamie pulled out the knife and attempted to defend himself.

  After wrestling with him to take the knife away, they dragged him into the bush under the pretense they were going to tie him up and leave him. Then they strangled him. Burgess complained of the difficulty, saying Battle’s breathe kept bubbling up when he took his hands away. Sullivan had to push on Battle’s stomach to finish the job. They buried him using his own shovel. Afterwards, Sullivan had remarked that it was a nasty job for so little. Of course, the confession was all part of Burgess’ attempt to implicate Sullivan more directly in the murders after Sullivan had turned Queen’s evidence against the gang, but it rang true in the details at least.

  “My uncle’s friend said Nelson was in a state of excitement when the men were missing,” said Crozier. “The four businessmen. Hundreds of men went searching for them, and when the bodies were brought down the whole town gathered…”

  “Much the same in Greymouth,” said James. “The whole town was waiting when I brought the body down the river. And most of them attended Dobson’s…”

  “And the funerals,” said Crozier. “He went to the funerals, or funeral, I should say. They were all buried at once. Thousands of people accompanied the cortège. It made quite a strong impression on him. The bodies were taken up to the Nelson cemetery in two carriages, with all kinds of dignitaries in more carriages, and horsemen following those, and a police escort, and…who was the man in charge of the police in Nelson back then?”

  “Sergeant-Major Shallcrass,” said James. He’d spoken to Shallcrass at some point; he couldn’t remember when. He’d asked him about giving immunity to Sullivan. Why had he done that when Sullivan was clearly guilty? And Shallcrass had said he was aiming to get Levy, the Jew, to confess, had in fact separated him from the others for that purpose, but Sullivan had got in first. That was how it was done back then. Find the weak link, get him to confess, send him off on a ship to Australia or England, and then hang the rest. As it turned out, Sullivan was the better witness; everything he said that could be confirmed had proven to be accurate. He’d told Shallcrass where a gun had been hidden, for example.

  “That’s right. Shallcrass,” said Crozier. “He was there as well. He was given the task of searching for the bodies. Like yourself in Greymouth, I suppose.”

  James nodded. Broham had been technically in charge, but he’d given up too soon, allowing James to claim success – which hadn’t sat well with Broham later.

  “You weren’t in Nelson for the search, then,” said Crozier. “Or the trial. Do you know how they died? The victims? My uncle’s friend didn’t know about that. He wasn’t a very good reader, and…”

  James nodded again. They’d done the same thing to the four men as they had to old Jamie Battle; told them they were just going to tie them up and leave them in the bush, away from the track, to give themselves a head start. The men were not armed and had no means of protecting themselves, probably thinking there was safety in numbers. But three were strangled and one was shot when strangulation didn’t kill him.

  When they returned from the murders, they went through the swags attached to the horse’s saddle, then tried to lead it down a gully, but it fell and got stuck, so Sullivan shot it right in the white blaze between its eyes. Fortunate, really, as they’d been able to match the bullet to one of the guns when they dug it out of the horse. Sullivan claimed he had been left to watch the track; he’d asked Burgess if he could be one of the men to go into the bush, but Burgess refused his request, saying they should all keep their stations. It was as if they were all clerks at the Bank of New Zealand, with assigned positions and levels of authority, and Burgess was the manager.

  “It wasn’t pretty,” said James. “What they did to those men. They were hiding along the track, with two of them, Sullivan and Levy, behind a big rock - it’s been called Murderers’ Rock ever since - and they stepped out in front of the victims and said ‘Stand. Bail up,’ meaning get together in a group. The victims threw their hands up in alarm. Kelly and Burgess then came down the track each holding a gun and a knife…”

  “Those poor men,” said Crozier. “How dreadful it must be, knowing you’re going to die…”

  “At least three of them knew they were going to die,” said James grimly. “Once they’d killed the first one…”

  “It’s like something from a dime novel,” said Crozier. “Only without a hero to save them…”

  That felt a little too close to the truth for James. He stood up and placed his ginger beer bottle on the bench. “Let’s continue on. Elizabeth will be wondering…”

  Crozier had finished his ice, and tossed the container into the river. He picked up the framed testimonial and rested it awkwardly on his hip. “Let’s carry on then,” he said. “Can’t keep Mrs. James waiting.” He started to walk and then stopped. “You mentioned Kelly, Inspector James. Does that Kelly have any connection to the outlaw Kelly, the Australian one?”

  “Not that I know of,” said James. “A common enough name I believe. Although I did know that other Kelly, Ned Kelly, in a manner of speaking. I was sent to Mitchell in 1860 to be the Clerk of Court, and his family lived in the district, in a town called Beveridge. He would have been just a lad at the time. I remember when he was presented with the sash, after he saved a boy from drowning. Probably the only decent thing he did in his entire life. His father’s fault, no doubt. He was a thieving bast…devil. I met them once, his parents. They came in to complain about the police, said we were persecuting them. And, of course, Ned died in a shootout with police.”

  “The people must have been relieved,” said Crozier. “Glad he was gone from their lives.”

  “Strangely enough, they weren’t,” said James. “He was very popular. They saw him as a kind of hero, almost like Robin Hood.” Now that he thought of it, Wilson had been seen in a somewhat similar way by the general populace, as a likeable person, because he was too young and innocent-looking to have killed anyone, with his small stature and his fair curls. What was it about people that they could not see through someone like that, understand the depths of evil that rested inside them. Like Kelly the outlaw, Wilson had deceived many who should have known better.

  17

  Greymouth, 1866: Neither Man Nor Boy

  Building the C
ase Against Jamie Wilson

  Thinking back to that time, James remembered spending months tracking down the actions of Jamie Wilson, finding out what the gang had done to George Dobson, and making a case against his murderer.

  With the body found, the inquests and the funeral over, and the trial to prepare for, he had settled down to the hard slog of tying down the evidence for what he was sure had happened. He began by reading Sullivan’s confession. He’d learned more about the gang since the Dobson inquest: in his gaol cell in Nelson, Burgess was boasting he was not afraid of death, convinced he would meet a better life on the other side, as unlikely as that seemed. James had a rather good idea where Burgess might be heading and it wasn’t towards the pearly gates. And Levy, who was known as a “putter upper,” or crime planner, and was therefore considered less vicious and more likely not to have been involved in the dirty work, had in fact kept a sly grog shanty on the road to the goldfields in Otago near the Molyneux River from where many diggers had gone missing or been found dead in the river. Burgess and Kelly had been in gaol in Otago for sticking up and shooting at the police in Wetherstones; Sullivan had also been involved but had been given a lighter sentence, afterwards leaving for New South Wales. The Otago police had been surprised to learn that he was back in New Zealand.

  Minutes into Sullivan’s confession he realized that Wilson, or Murray as Sullivan called him, had been left in Greymouth to keep an eye on James while the gang planned the murder of Mr. Fox. That explained why Wilson was staying at the Criterion Hotel, which was on the corner of Gresson and Arney Streets, and fifty yards from James’ own house, rather than in the Provincial Hotel with Burgess and Levy. Strange that he hadn’t seen…more importantly, Sullivan had placed Wilson on the scene of the murder of George Dobson, not just as a hanger-on, but as a central participant. Luckily, Wilson was in custody and going nowhere until the trial, and there was plenty of time to make a case. According to Sullivan, not only had they murdered Dobson in his district, but they had also murdered a storekeeper at the Grey, and an accomplice whom they considered too weak for what they wanted to do.

  He read through the confession carefully, starting with the deaths on the Maungatapu, noting the methods of the murderers, looking for similarities to Dobson’s murder. The men on the Maungatapu had been strangled and shot, and one, Pontius, had been stoned—when he refused to die, the villains picked up rocks and smashed them on his head until he succumbed. One method was not enough for any single victim, as with Dobson, who had been hit on the head and then strangled.

  Three of the bodies were buried in shallow graves under dirt and leaves, but the killers spent considerable time burying the fourth body under rocks. Sullivan explained that Burgess and Kelly thought that when three men were found and the fourth was seen to be missing, everyone would assume the missing man had killed his mates and sloped off with the gold and money. Clearly Burgess and Kelly did not understand that some men, especially those they had killed on the Maungatapu track, were known to be decent men and would not therefore be suspected of such a heinous crime. Old Jamie had been murdered because he had seen the gang, and Levy had decreed that no man should pass along the road alive. He too had been buried in a shallow grave and covered with dirt and leaves. The rule seemed to be that anyone who could identify them had to die.

  And as if strangling, shooting or stoning victims was not enough, the gang had, Sullivan said, also obtained strychnine with which to poison unsuspecting victims after they had befriended them. James knew that ingesting strychnine was one of the most painful ways to die; anyone swallowing it would die in convulsions. The gang’s scheme was to share a campfire with their would-be victims, partake in a pannikin of tea and a drop of grog laced with the poison, and when the victims died, to throw them in the river to be “found drowned,” be swept out to sea, or left to rot at the bottom of the river to provide food for eels.

  Sullivan noted that Wilson had known Burgess for some time, but had never been in on a big robbery and was keen to try. Kelly introduced him to Sullivan, telling him that Wilson was a clever pickpocket who survived by pretending to sell newspapers. He’d been a bellman at a hotel in Nelson, a bell-ringer some called it, but was convicted of petty theft and gaoled for six months, after which he’d moved to Hokitika. He’d begged Burgess to be allowed to accompany the gang on the stick-up of Mr. Fox, and Burgess had given it some thought before he agreed. Reading this, James was struck once more with the way Burgess managed and manipulated the men. They seemed to consider it an honour to work with him. What did they see in him?

  On Monday the 28th of May, the day Dobson was murdered, Sullivan claimed that he, Kelly and Wilson had been sent up the Twelve Mile to look out for Mr. Fox. Burgess had remained at the Provincial Hotel to await Levy, who was coming up from Hokitika—he couldn’t accompany the others as his boots were wet and he couldn’t get them on. But if they saw Mr. Fox coming by boat they were to send a message to Burgess by DeLacey.

  Interestingly, Sullivan claimed DeLacey had told them to be careful as there were plain-clothed policeman playing about on the track. He reread the date: if Sullivan was talking about the plain clothes men James had sent out, then the date was wrong. The constables had gone out after the date of the murder - after he had spoken to Wilson on May 30th, in fact. The murder date was firmly established in James’ mind as May 28th because David Duncan, who had given evidence at the inquest, was so sure of the day and had presented a dated receipt to prove he had been there. Sullivan said he had seen Duncan herding cattle on the day of the murder, and could not therefore have also have been expecting to see the plain clothes constables on the same day. The puzzle of the dates did not prove that Sullivan was lying, however. In fact, most of his information rang true. The question was, did he not remember the correct date, or was he trying to sew confusion about the dates without seeming to lie? Perhaps he was trying to develop an alibi after the fact. Of course, in a town like Greymouth dates and days of the week often meant nothing to people. They lived by the weather and the light.

  Kelly and Wilson had donned masks and waited for Mr. Fox, hiding inside a tent that was “stretched out” to make it look as though they were putting it up. Sullivan, who was not known to Mr. Fox, was sent up the track to engage him in conversation. Mr. Fox was described to him as “a tall, round-shouldered man with a long stride.” Sullivan had waited, but Mr. Fox had not come. Instead, a young surveyor, described later by Kelly as “neither man nor boy,” with his whole life still before him, came down the track and spoke to Sullivan. Sullivan described the encounter:

  “I met a young man and asked him how far it was to the shanty; he replied about half-a-mile. This was about 2 o’clock. I should think it was about half-a-mile from the bridge where I met him. There was no other tent between that spot and the iron store but ours. The young man had on dark clothes, and had what appeared to be a top coat suspended across his shoulder by a strap. I do not recollect whether he had a cap or hat. He had leggings or boots on. He had an albert guard. I think I would know it again … It is what I call a snake guard. I continued my way, and the man went on towards Greymouth.” Grey River Argus, 6 December 1866

  The next time Sullivan saw Dobson, a half hour later, he was leaning slumped against a tree with his tongue sticking out grotesquely, dead. Kelly and Wilson told him, unconvincingly, that the young man had died of fright. Sullivan thought they shouldn’t leave the body where it was, and waited while the other two - Kelly and Wilson - buried him under a layer of dirt and leaves, which they then stamped down, much in the way the gang had later stamped down on the graves of the five men on the Maungatapu. They buried the watch and chain with the body, he said, but he had burned a deposit receipt worth forty-two pounds.

  Dobson was murdered because the gang had been unable to rob Mr. Fox, and were annoyed. They knew who they were killing, and had not killed him in mistake for Mr. Fox, as the papers had speculated; after all, either Wilson or Kelly had described Mr. Fox to Sulliva
n, and Dobson in no way matched that description. The brutes may have mistaken him for someone who carried cash - a bank agent like Mr. Walmsley, perhaps - but they would soon have realized he was merely a surveyor checking a recently-built road who would not carry a large sum of money on his person. But once they had stuck him up he had seen them and had to die.

  With blood on their hands, Burgess, Kelly, Levy and Sullivan had left Greymouth when James had told them to leave, and gone on to Nelson, apparently with the idea of robbing a bank there; soon after, five more men had been killed.

  Wilson had come to him two days after the murder of George Dobson, more afraid of Burgess and Kelly than he was of the police, to confess to a future crime knowing he had already been present and assisted at a murder himself. He must have hoped that Dobson’s body would remain missing; he had underestimated James’ persistence.

  He stopped reading, thinking hard, drumming on the table with his fingers. The facts were there. Everyone agreed that the murder had taken place on May 28th; but Wilson had come to see James at his home on May 30th– he had the date in his notebook – and Mr. Warden Revell would confirm it. Wilson’s “confession” was intended to cover his own tracks, and use the police to save himself from Burgess. It was a sleight of hand. Confess to being involved in a conspiracy to rob and throw suspicion away from a murder he had already committed - or at least been present at.

  After James had warned the gang off, they had boarded the S.S. Wallaby and gone to Nelson, where they had continued their murderous rampage. He would need to find more out about how they had gone north, and when; he would talk to the captain of the S.S. Wallaby when he had an opportunity. He skimmed through the rest of the confession, noting that Sullivan had described how they had killed a storekeeper on the Grey. They had gone into his store and demanded money. When he had refused to give them any they had “half strangled him.” They had promised to let him live if he told them where the money was, and when he had done so they finished strangling him and threw his body in the river. As usual, they had left no witnesses.