by Peter Carey
he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a’ tiptoe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall see this day, and live old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say, “Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, “These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.”
Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
I do not know where that deep voice came from for the teacher’s normal manner were light as a reed bt. now he read to us his eyes afire his face that of a soldier by my side so did the priests rise up beside the common people in times of yore.
Those what listened sat on floor or table they wasnt well schooled it werent their fault but many cd. not write their names. Their clothes was worn the smell of the pigpen & the cow yd. was both present but their eyes burn’d with the necessary fire.
Constable Bracken were scowling but amongst the other faces there were astonishment for even if the meaning were not clear they cd. see a man of learning might compare us to a King & when in the middle of the poem Dan & Joe come back in from the night then all eyes went reverently to those armour’d men. Them boys was noble of true Australian coin.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England, now a-bed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon St Crispin’s day.
When he finish’d there were a moment of silence & then Mrs Jones let out a great hooray & all the men was clapping & whistling & the little cripple were alight I pick’d him up & sat him on the bar he give me the 2 pages from his book.
He—a souvenir of battle.
Me—but you will do wt. you promised?
He—regarding your history? O I couldnt do it here Mr Kelly. I wd. need to take it to my house. I wd. need my books about me.
He waits. No time
THE SIEGE AT GLENROWAN
Thomas Curnow had entered the dragon’s lair, the benighted heart of everything rank and ignorant. He had danced with the devil himself and he had flattered him and out-witted him as successfully as the hero of any fairy tale, and now he carried the proof, the trophy, the rank untidy nest of paper beneath his arm. These stained “manuscripts” were disgusting to his touch and his very skin shrank from their conceit and ignorance and yet he was a man already triumphant. He had ripped out the creature’s bloody heart and he would damn him now to hell.
He hurried towards his buggy. His legs would not work, they had never worked. He could not dance or run. He could only hop and limp and when he did so quickly, like this, it sent shooting pains up into his thighs and buttocks. He hurried through the cold clear eucalyptus night and as he came around the south east corner of Mrs Jones’ hotel he overheard his character discussed.
That teacher is a liar, he heard Joe Byrne cry. —He is a f–––––g fizgig. Let me pink the b––––r, Ned.
Shut-up, said Dan. I hear a whistle.
Shut-up, said Steve Hart. It’s coming.
Dear God, let not the train come yet. Curnow dare not hurry and therefore took his horse and buggy home at a slow and easy pace. There were mobs of men sitting amongst the dark trees, he felt them watch him, felt their dull and resentful unlettered eyes. Dear God, let them not murder him.
At his cottage behind the schoolhouse he tapped on the door but his wife would not withdraw the bolt.
For God’s sake, woman, let me in. It’s me, your husband.
Once she had admitted him she did not wish to let him go. She clung to him and wept.
No, no, Thomas, they will kill you.
Good Lord, Jean, there are hundreds of policemen on their way to death.
What will happen to me? she cried.
It was then he heard the whistle of the train, and he thrust the rat’s nest of papers into her arms. He snatched up a candle and his wife’s red scarf.
He ran as best he could, down the gully beside the schoolhouse, then up the embankment to the railway line which had always been there waiting for him. And there it was, the head-lamp of the locomotive, the rails gleaming like destiny itself.
The entire colony was cowed by Ned Kelly but Thomas Curnow lit the candle, and while the frail flame flickered in the hostile air he held the red scarf in front of it and he stood in plain clear view of whomever would take his life.
The locomotive loomed, all steam and steel, and as the brakes screamed and the steam gushed he screwed up his face waiting for the bullet in his spine.
What is it? called the guard.
The Kellys, he cried.
And he had done it. It was history now. In a few minutes the train would return to the station and disgorge its living cargo of thirty men and twenty horses. He had saved them all. As he hurried home to his cottage the noise at the station was terrific, men shouting, horses rearing and plunging from the vans. Thomas Curnow heard them as he knocked urgently on his cottage door and was admitted by his tearful wife.
In the confined space of Mrs Jones’ best room the members of the Kelly Gang now donned their armour, clanging chests, bumping heads, gouging Mrs Jones’ cedar table as they searched for carbines, pistols, ammunition. Of the so-called hostages only one took this easy opportunity to escape and by the time Ned Kelly came back into the bar to extinguish the lanterns and douse the blazing fire, the long-bodied short-legged Constable Bracken was sprinting through the bush. He fell down the ditch and scrambled up the other side, then he hurdled the fence which separated the shanty from the railway line.
Bracken rushed out of the darkness. —The Kellys, they’re here.
He was bug-eyed, unshaven, out of breath. He pushed his way onto the crowded chaotic platform but the Melbourne police did not know him, and they were occupied with unloading fretful horses. No-one would pay him any attention.
Meanwhile Ned Kelly stumbled through a different crowd, inside the darkened shanty. He found the hallway, then the skillion. He emerged into the night air, walking with the slow dream-like gait which was the necessary consequence of the one hundred and twelve pounds of armour hidden beneath his long oilskin coat. His grey mare was waiting and he mounted with some very considerable difficulty and then ambled his horse two hundred yards down the track towards Glenrowan station. The police paid the curious horseman no more attention than they paid to Bracken, whose plaintive voice could be heard amidst the confusion of men and horses.
Where is the senior officer? Where is he?
Ned waited until Bracken had finally found Superintendent Hare, then he turned back to the shanty.
As the police climbed the fence between the hotel and the railway line, three ironclad men awaited them in the dark shadow of the front veranda. The tallest of them, Joe Byrne, raised his rifle.
This f–––––g armour. I cannot b––––y sight my rifle.
Shut-up, they’ll hear you.
The police hurried through the open bushland not bothering to take cover. At the point where Superintendent Hare finally paused, there was nothing separating the two parties but a small revolving iron gate. They were thirty yards apart.
Where is Ned? Dan Kelly whispered.
I’m here, boys. The older Kelly took up his place in the centre of the veranda and raised his Colt revolving rifle.
And here’s your grandmother with her big iron nose. So saying, he fired.
Immediately, Hare fell.
Good gracious! he cried. I am hit the very first shot!
And then the cold night was suddenly ablaze with gunfire. The gang held back in the deep shadow of the veranda, all except Ned Kelly, who stepped out into the moonlight and took steady aim.
Fire away, you b––––y dogs. You can’t hurt us.
No sooner had he said this than a Martini-Henry bullet smashed through his left arm. He grunted, turned, and then he felt the second shot rip like a saw-blade through his foot. He turned and retreated to the hotel.
In the first minute the police fired sixty bullets and in the following half hour they held their fire for no man or woman, child or outlaw, and when they did finally relent for a moment the night air was rent with a high dreadful shrieking. They had shot the boy who had sung “Colleen das cruitha na mo.”
Thomas Curnow, sitting at his desk four hundred yards away, put his hands across his ears.
What is that? his wife asked.
Nothing, nothing, go to bed.
Oh dear God, what have you done? Those poor hostages.
They’re not hostages, said Curnow, they are there because they’re with the Kellys. They’re as bad as bandits.
But now she was the one trying to go out the door, already tying the red scarf around her neck.
It’s a child, she said. Are they shooting children now?
Thomas Curnow limped across the room, and angrily pulling the scarf away from her, he burned her neck and she cried out with pain.
God help you, girl, don’t you see, everyone is for the Kellys? You were born here, Jean. Have you no idea what class of person you are dealing with?
You coward, she cried. They’re shooting children.
Me a coward? Oh dear Lord, who have I married? A coward is it? Then who saved those policemen while you were weeping in your bed? Go to your room.
What’s that?
Shut the curtain, it is a Chinese rocket. It is some kind of signal from the Kellys. You had better pray there are enough police to win the day.
Another fusillade echoed round the valley and she came to him and took his hands.
Oh Tom, what have you done?
What I have done, he said, is become a hero.
For a day and night the shanty had been a lively jolly place, but it was not suitable as a fortress. The outer walls were one board thick, the inner ones no more than paper and hessian, so now the hotel offered no more protection than a Sunday dress. The bullets penetrated so easily and so often that those inside could do no more than lie upon the floor and pray.
When Ned Kelly limped back inside it was pitch black and the air was sour with cold wet smoke. The air was rent with the screams of young Jack Jones. Hell itself could not be worse.
Ned, stop them. They’re murdering us!
I will.
He walked once more to the front door and was greeted with twenty rounds.
I’m hit, cried a voice in the back room. God save us all.
Jack Jones shrieked, the bullet had broken his hip bone and penetrated deep into his gut. A man pushed forward in the dark, the howling boy in his arms.
Get out, Kelly, damn you, let me through.
Ned Kelly stepped aside.
It was the labourer, McHugh, and he stood in the open door holding a white handkerchief in his left hand while he grasped the injured child in his right.
Don’t fire, you mongrels, it’s a child.
Help me, cried Jack Jones.
The place is full of women and children! Stop firing!
There was one more shot but then silence, and McHugh walked out the door. Mrs Jones followed. Immediately two shots rang out and she slumped to her knees, her hand to her head.
I’m shot! she cried.
But it was only a graze, and she was able to crawl back along the floor and lie behind her bar and there she remained, whimpering for her child.
No-one spoke to Ned Kelly in this time but he did not need to have his responsibility pointed out. He could not protect these people against the police, nor could he protect himself. It seemed there was no machine ever invented that could protect these people from the forces God had placed upon the earth.
Is that you, Ned? cried a voice from the hallway.
Is that you, Joe? Come here.
Come here be damned. What are you doing there?
Come here and load my rifle. I’m cooked.
So am I. Dear God, I think my leg is broken.
As Ned walked towards the voice he could feel the blood pooling in his boot.
Leg be damned, Joe, you’ve got the use of your arms. Come with me and load my rifle, come on, load for me! I’ll pink the b––––rs! Hare is finished. We’ll soon finish the rest.
We’ve done these poor b––––rs an awful harm.
Well, we ain’t lost yet.
Joe Byrne did not answer.
Where are you? Ned began to kneel and then his leg collapsed, he fell heavily. Immediately he began to crawl forward, scraping the heavy steel cock-plate noisily along the floor. —Here, load my rifle. Joe?
With his good right hand he found Joe Byrne’s hand but it was limp and bloody as a freshly skinned beast.
Joe?
He pulled himself closer and propped himself against the wall. In the darkness he located his friend’s nose and mouth, then placed his hand across them. The beard was soft and wet, the lips were warm against the palm but all that fretful breath was still.
Oh Joe, I’m so sorry, old man.
Another hail of bullets ripped through the dark hotel, splintering wood and breaking glass and causing the hostages to raise their voices in shouts of anger.
Shoot them, Ned. Stop the b––––rs!
I will, I will.
He wrenched himself violently to his feet and stumbled back along the hallway into the bar.
Dan? Steve?
He opened the door to the front room where he had, a short time before, confidently laboured on his history. At that time he would see his child again. At that time he would release his mother. At that time these people would occupy their own land without fear or favour, but now the world was a filthy mire and mess.
Dan?
They’re gone, said a voice in the darkness.
Not shot?
Your brother and his mate have left us. You must stop them cops, mate, you have to stop them now for they are murdering us.
I will.
He stumbled out the back door and into the early dawn.
Intending to draw the police fire onto himself, he mounted his horse, although with considerable difficulty. As he rode down the police flank, he heard gunfire from the front veranda. He twisted painfully in the saddle and then he realised Dan had not left at all. He and Steve Hart were standing side by side on the veranda of the shanty blazing wildly at their foes.
He had no strength. His left arm was useless. He began to swing down out of the stirrup but fell hard onto the ground. He walked painfully towards his brother, no longer deigning to take cover or hide himself. He hammered the butt of his revolver against his chest to let Dan hear him coming to the rescue.
I am the b––––y Monitor, my boys.
But he was not the Monitor, he was a man of skin and shattered bone with blood squelching in his boot. The Martini-Henry bullets slammed against him and he was jolted and jarred, his
head slammed sideways, yet he would not stop.
You shoot children, you b––––y dogs. You can’t shoot me.
He fired, but he could not see to aim. He roared and raised his revolver and struck it against his chest, the blows ringing with the distinctiveness of a blacksmith’s hammer in the morning air.
Dan! Come with me, Dan. I am the b––––y Monitor.
But between him and Dan there was a small round policeman in a tweed hat standing quietly beside a tree. It was plump little toads like him who had fed off the Kellys for ever. He might as well have been Hall or Flood or Fitzpatrick,they had become the same.
Ned fired. Then the man dropped on one knee, raised his rifle and fired two shots in quick succession.
Ned never heard the rifle fire but the first blow hit his right leg and he was on the ground before he felt the deeper sharper pain of the second hit.
My legs, you mongrel!
And then they were on him like a pack of dingoes. They ripped him, kicked him, cried that they would shoot him dead, and even while their boots thudded on his armoured chest he saw his little brother standing on the veranda. He was a Kelly, he would never run.
Ned Kelly would be spared the sight of Dan’s empty useless armour which was raked from the ashes of Jones Hotel on Monday afternoon. It was his sisters, Kate and Maggie, who would be left to fight the police for possession of the two black and bubbled bodies which had been found lying side by side in the burnt-out hotel.
“The scene at Greta, when the charred remains of Hart and Dan Kelly were carried by their friends, was perfectly indescribable,” reported The Benalla Ensign. “The people seemed to flock from the gum trees. They were some of the worst-looking people that I ever saw in all my life.”
Thomas Curnow, meanwhile, was escorted by six policemen directly from his cottage to the Special Train and from there he was taken to Melbourne, where government protection was provided him and his wife for four more months. This was curious treatment for a hero, and he was called a hero more than once, although less frequently and less enthusiastically than he might have reasonably expected.
If this lack of lasting recognition disappointed him, he never revealed it directly, although the continuing, ever-growing adoration of the Kelly Gang could always engage his passions.