“Get to hell wid ye. I’m a-talking. Run him out, Ed.”
A stocky man hurried the protesting boy to the door, thrust him outside and closed the door. He was laughing when he returned and Red was continuing his tale of a stray steer. From the short incident, Gaffer looked direct to Bony, and Bony said:
“Was that in the act?”
The old man nodded, clearly puzzled, and said: “ ’Tis in the play actin’, Nat; as Red said, a trifle early.”
“Then the boy’s a good actor.”
“Could be too good, Nat. Could be a trifle too good. I’ll go an’ have a word with him.”
“I’ll go with you. Wonder where Mike is.”
“Pacifying Grandma, seems like. Only level head here.”
“How you going, Gaffer, you bloody immortal?” yelled Red Kelly as they were skirting his group. “Any toime you want a wrestle, Nat, just give a hint or two.”
Bony smiled and winked and followed Gaffer. Then Bessie was holding him by the arm and saying:
“Dance with me, Nat. I’ve got something. They burned his clothes and things in the kitchen range the morning after.”
“Just a moment Bessie. There’s something we have to look into.”
They didn’t reach the front door. It was flung inward and four large men entered, lining up to confront the crowd. They wore raincoats over civilian suits, but they had that unmistakable appearance. The gyrating people halted. Red and others damped their voices, became silent and tense. One of the four said loudly:
“Excise officers here. Have a warrant to search the place. Running a bar, eh? Well, well! Good day’s come at last.”
No one moved, save Red Kelly who slowly slid off the counter, and as slowly put on his sinister helmet.
The leader of the intruders laughed but without mirth. “Ned Kelly to the life. And he’s actually dyed his whiskers black. What a yarn to tell the kids. What …”
His voice was drowned out by the skirl of the war-pipes and in by the rear door marched the piper playing ‘It’s a great day for the Irish’. The crowd opened to let him through. A powerful man, he strode across the room, seemed to sweep Red Kelly from his path, came on and on to confront the leader of the invaders. He kicked the leader in the stomach, smartly about turned, and marched back leaving the man writhing on the floor. Other than these two no one moved until the piper had left the room. Red Kelly was the first to break the tableau.
The man on the floor continued to writhe. One of the remaining three bent over him. Another looked stupidly uncertain at the advancing armoured giant, and the fourth produced a revolver. Then Bony was nudged aside, having to take Bessie with him, and Mike Conway confronted the strangers. His voice was a whip.
“Who are you?”
“Excise officers. Stand back. We have a warrant.”
“Show it.”
“It’ll be shown, mister. You stand back. Any rough stuff and I’ll shoot.”
“This is a private house. This is a private party,” Mike said, coldly. “You will withdraw at once, this instant.”
“Afterwards, Mr Conway, afterwards. I’ll drop the first man who makes a move.”
At Mike’s side was Bony. Behind them were ranged a rampart of men. They concealed swift activity going on behind them. Bottles of whisky, alleged, were being tossed into a shaft behind the bar counter, and bottles of real whisky placed thereon. Bony did not know of this. He was burning with anger.
Now the leader was recovering; he managed to speak, telling his man with the revolver to shoot if attacked. A moment later he resumed command.
“You men move back.”
The four men moved forward, but Mike and Bony and those behind budged not an inch, resulting in two absurdly immovable objects. The excise officers then shoved, and one unintentionally shoved Bessie. The impact of her hand against his face terminated the phoney period of this war.
Although four against fifty, the invaders performed magnificently. They were all hard and large and proficient in the art of Australian warfare, but sheer poundage submerged them. The mighty Red Kelly, in his namesake’s steel armour, found himself at too great a disadvantage, and he removed his helmet and jammed it over the head of the man with the revolver. With his comrades he was forced back and back to the door; his arm was almost broken in an attempt to make him release his hold on the weapon which was passed to Red Kelly.
Red pushed aside a fellow Irishman the better to take aim at the leader of the excise men, and then found Bony on his back, bending his head forward the better to reach the gun, or least to deflect the aim. Bony, however, was unable to obtain proper purchase of Red with his legs because of the armour, and Red fired before he could be mastered. He missed and concentrated his attention on his clawing attacker, bending and heaving and screaming unintelligible threats.
If the leather thongs tying together the back and front plates had not broken, he would not have dislodged Bony. When they did, Bony and the armour slid off Red to the floor and became one with the pounding feet. He was kicked and cuffed and trodden upon, and on effecting an escape found himself on the outside of the mêlée … with the revolver.
Then he observed an extraordinary sight. Old Gaffer was dancing on the counter, a bottle of a well-known brand of whisky in one hand and his breeches in the other. A knot of women spectators were near the rear door, and the tenor was on the stage, singing without accompaniment ‘Black is the Colour’.
Bony could see Red Kelly’s head above the mass, but Red being in the middle of the press was unable to get his hands up, and was yelling for a space to ‘kill the bliddy bastids’. There was nothing Bony could do, except to pull the fallen from under the mass.
He found Bessie assisting him and wondered how she had managed to escape. Bessie was screaming with excitement. Half her clothes were torn away, and soon it was apparent that her objective was less the preservation of life than something in the centre of the mass. Joe Flanagan and another man were rescued unconscious. Jack the Smuggler and two others were alive and rushed back into the fray. And the tenor changed his song to ‘Did Your Mother Come From Ireland’.
Shocked, bleeding from the nose and with a gash somewhere in his scalp, Bony stood back and experienced resignation. He was sure that when this fight was over at least one man would be dead, and many others fit for hospital. He could no longer see Red Kelly.
Brian Kelly left his wall. He put on his helmet. For a moment or two he swayed on his thick legs before taking up a chair. With his right hand he pulled, and with his left he pushed. The chair came apart, and the wrecker now had a shillelagh in each hand. He reminded Bony of the piper when, with abrupt control, he advanced to the rear of the seething mass and without observable malice aforethought, proceeded to tap the combatants one by one.
The effect was an Irishry. The reduction of pressure on the outside produced an explosive effect in the centre. Red Kelly reappeared, the mighty man of black hair and whiskers and a mass of red hair on his naked chest. Men fell upon his son, and left a wide clear passage from Red to Bony.
What Red said Bony could not hear, but he could see Red’s intention expressed by the small blue eyes and crouching attitude. He retreated to extend the distance between them, knowing that this man was incapable of learning from experience, and feeling a tinge of pity for such a fine human animal bereft of normal intelligence.
The noise subsided. Jack the Smuggler shouted:
“Not that way, Red. Not that way.”
But Red Kelly was launched. He sped across the intervening yards, hands thrust forward to grasp, his brain anticipating, his eyes aflame with lust. He stepped into Bony’s hands, and became his own springboard.
He rose, and in that instant must have understood he was bankrupt of all profit from experience. He bent his head forward on the way up and thus his enormous shoulders met the ceiling. He would have made a fairly clean hole through the plaster between the joists, but unfortunately his shoulders up-thrusted a
joist, which, because of age, snapped and loosened a cross-joist. He came down again, followed by more than half the entire ceiling.
Pandemonium was revived. The dust of a century mingled with the dust of the plaster and became the universal pacifier. Red opened his mouth to shout and his lungs were filled with dust. Men crouched in paroxysms of coughing. Gaffer seemed to be in a vacuum and continued his dervish dancing on the counter, and Bony stood in another vacuum on the stage beside the singer, who was still singing. And on to the battle-field marched the police.
Sergeant O’Leary was a good tactician, and his army was fourteen-man strong. He broke the combatants into sections, making Red Kelly a section by himself. He had old Gaffer down off the counter. He ordered the handcuffing of Red Kelly for continuing to be violent. The near dead were examined and persuaded to stand or sit, and beyond the settling dust Bony could, thankfully, see no dead men.
“Why are you people interfering?”
Sergeant O’Leary found Bony confronting him.
“Seems to have been a mix up, Inspector,” he said, and hastened to add: “Don’t mean here. We were informed that customs intended barging in, and were instructed to preserve our rights, as it were.”
“The terms of my assignment were clear,” snapped Bony.
“Still yours, sir,” agreed O’Leary, trying hard to prevent a coughing fit.
“Thanks. First I’ll deal with these customs people.” He confronted the four intruders, no less ludicrously disarrayed than they. “I am Inspector Bonaparte, in charge here. You will leave at once.”
“Like hell we will,” growled the leader.
“Then you will be arrested and charged with riotous behaviour, being unlawfully on enclosed premises, and wilfully damaging private property. The choice is yours.”
Bony gambled on there being no warrant, and won. The leader glanced upward at where the ceiling had been, shrugged and led his men away. The sergeant was smiling grimly. He foresaw much departmental strife, but in him esprit de corps was strong. Bony beckoned forward the men holding Red Kelly.
“Red, I am finding myself reluctant to do what I have to do. This night you have committed the same mistake made by Ned Kelly at Glenrowan. You permitted a few drinks to cloud your mind. The boy gave you warning, and you ignored it. You have brought much trouble to the people of Cork Valley, through that mistake. And I now arrest you for the murder of Eric Torby, alias Hillier. Anything you say may be taken down and used against you.” Then Bony shouted, astonishing O’Leary: “SO SHUT UP!”
Chapter Twenty-six
The Prodigal Conway
THE NIGHT was wild with wind and scattering rain, and now and then faint whirls of blue smoke were puffed into the living-room where Grandma Conway sat gazing with cold sadness at the burning logs. With her was her grandson, and his wife was about to dish up the dinner. Talking softly in a distant corner were Joe Flanagan and Steve the Smuggler. It was the second night following the Ned Kelly Festival.
“Will they hang Red?” asked Grandma, not looking at Mike.
“You’ve asked that before,” he said. “They don’t hang in New South Wales. He’ll probably get twelve years and be let out in eight if he behaves himself.”
“He won’t behave, Mike. Doesn’t know how to. What did Brian come to see you about?”
“Not about Red. He said he’d spoken to Rosalie about marriage yesterday. He told her that he could make something of his life with his father out of the way, and asked her to wait for him to give proof of it. What he wants us to do is not to insist that he makes the trip to Ireland. I’ve spoken to Rosalie, and she told me she’d want a year to make up her mind.”
“Then let ’em bide, Mike.”
“Best policy, I think.”
“Yes, let ’em bide. We have troubles enough right now.”
Mike sighed. “If only I hadn’t picked up that feller.”
“Don’t be blamin’ of yourself, Mike. He took us all in. He even took me in, what with … what with …”
The old lady stiffened, looked up into her grandson’s face.
From outside the room there came to them the leaf rendering of ‘Danny Boy’. Mike stood. Mate froze in the act of opening the oven door. The tune became louder, and now they knew it came from the back door. Then Bony appeared. The wind had flailed his hair, and above the cupped hands, holding the leaf against his lips, his eyes were bright and very blue.
The two men at the end of the room advanced swiftly, and Mike waved them back. He himself stepped backward while continuing to face Bony who came to a halt before Grandma. The used leaf was tossed into the fire, and he said:
“Being a Conway I’ve come to relieve your minds of little worries, and bid you all farewell before going home to my wife and sons near Brisbane.”
“You’re no Conway,” Mike said, icily, his eyes blazing.
“Oh, but I am, and proud of it, too. You remember when you and Red and I found where the bushwalkers came down to the valley. From what Red said as we stood there, I knew you had nothing to do with Torby’s murder, and that you fully believed he was alive. The letter you received and which you believed came from him was actually written by O’Halloran and posted in Sydney.
“I’ve had a conversation with Red in the cell. D’you know why he did it? How many times has he said: ‘I believe in being carshious’? He hit Brian and got him from the car. He drove off with Torby to a quiet place, and broke his neck, and then waited till early morning to dump the body on the road to Bowral, after removing the clothes and dressing it in working-clothes. He was burning the clothes and rucksack in the kitchen stove when the cook got up that morning.
“I explained to Red what all that was going to mean to everyone here in Cork Valley, how all of you could be in serious trouble over the back-door trading. I impressed on him that a number of you could be imprisoned for making Mountain Dew, and afterwards have the excise officers always on your backs.”
“They haven’t come. We’ve been expecting them. Do you know why?” Mike asked.
“I believe I do. I was given the job of investigating the death of Torby, and the condition I laid down when taking it was that there would be no police interference with me. Those bushwalkers worried me, so I sent a message to Torby’s address, confident it would be handed to the police. Instead it was passed to the customs people, and, as you know, they jumped the gun. You will agree that if O’Leary hadn’t appeared, the end of the festival might have been really electric.
“There is then the death of a man named Kelso,” continued Bony sternly. “I was relieved to know that no one of Cork Valley was involved save Red, and that the affair occurred more than a hundred miles south of Cork Valley. The degree of Red’s participation in that crime has yet to be investigated and I don’t think you will be concerned. In order to avoid innocent persons being involved in Red’s crimes, I persuaded him to admit that he killed Torby for a reason entirely his own, which is the truth, and although he isn’t highly intelligent I believe he will stand by it in his loyalty to Cork Valley.”
They were silent for several moments before Mike questioned.
“And what will you be doing?”
“I shall prepare the case against him. Is there something else?”
“You know about the still? Red told you?” Grandma asserted.
“As though Red would,” Bony said reproachfully. “That’s a lovely still an’ all; and what pearly Mountain Dew!” Bony took them both into his faint smile. “I’m going to ask you a favour. Destroy that still and terminate the back-door trading. Will you do so?”
“And supposin’ we couldn’t have the heart to, Inspector Dinkum-Irish Bonaparte?” answered Grandma.
“Then I would be leaving you with a sad heart, and would regret that you made me a Conway.”
“Would ye be after denying us our rights?” she persisted, eyes bright, colour high in her china-like cheeks.
“I’m not, Grandma, but the customs will
be. Remember times have changed. We ordinary people haven’t any rights but to obey what has been made legal. And look you here. Some time or other you could make a teeny-weeny still just to provide a taste or two at the next Ned Kelly Festival. But no backdoor trading.”
Joe and Steve were standing behind Grandma’s chair. Rosalie stood behind them, Bessie O’Grady’s arm about her waist. Grandma Conway said: “Nat, me bhoy, I cannot say nay to ye.”
“It’ll be right, Nat. We’ll destroy the still first thing in the morning,” seconded Mike.
“And will you send me an invitation to the next festival?”
“Being a Conway, Nat, being a Conway,” Grandma instantly agreed, and Mike asked:
“Would you tell us how the customs and police got down here on such short notice to us?”
“Of course. They entered the valley down the cliffs by means of ropes and ladders. They planned the way when they finally understood they could never hope to spring a raid by following the normal route. The police came down by the same way, having trailed the excise officers, and they chose a new route when they found out that the way Torby came in had been wrecked with explosive.
“As I mentioned, conditions have altered. The long era of free enterprise has ended.” Bony broke into his stage Irish. “I thank ’e in advance for askin’ of me to come to the Ned Kelly Festival next year, and now, before I jine ye at table I’ll be a-serenadin’ of ye, Grandma. What’ll it be?”
She spoke in Gaelic, and Mate Conway exclaimed:
“Speak English, Grandma.”
“To the divil with English,” Bony said, producing a gum leaf. “I know the Gaelic for ‘Danny Boy’.”
Bony - 25 - Bony and The Kelly Gang Page 19
