Above the Starry Frame

by Helen Townsend

  Later that day, men marched the nine miles from Creswick to Ballarat under Thomas Kennedy, who was speechifying all the way and was helped in his dramatics by a lightning storm, and by the Creswick brass band, who played the Frenchies’ national tune of the ‘Marseillaise’. But it did little good. The glory Kennedy had promised them wasn’t there. The poor stockade was not properly fortified; there was only a small number of firearms without sufficient ammunition and a few pikes. There was a want of food, and nowhere to sleep. So despite the fine flag fluttering above the stockade, the Creswick men went back home.

  On the next day, which was Saturday, rumours flew. It was said Lalor and Frederick Vern were falling out with each other, that there were American riflemen coming, that Vern was promising a German brigade. These were sudden rumours, and it was hard to tell what substance they might have. The German brigade, if it ever existed, never made an appearance. A body of about two hundred men calling themselves the Independent Californian Rangers came into the stockade, promised help, and then said they were going out on the road, ready to intercept any troops sent from Melbourne. They were not heard of again.

  But William and others felt some hope because there was no licence hunt. They prayed that Rede had seen their point. And as time passed, it seemed less and less likely that there would be a licence hunt, since the troopers never did such a thing on a Saturday afternoon, that always being given over to their leisure. There seemed a chance that the heat might go out of the situation and wiser counsel prevail.

  ‘I fear it’s a most dangerous situation still,’ Humffray said to William. ‘The government camp is armed to the teeth. There are rumours everywhere and Rede has not the wit to distinguish fact from fiction, which is hard enough even for a rational man.’ Humffray stuck to practicalities and arranged for a doctor to go into the stockade and offer his services in case they were needed. Humffray’s heart was with the diggers, even though many of them saw him as a betrayer once they swung behind the physical force men. Threats were made to his life, so he was careful, but not cowed. Father Smyth went into the stockade and asked the men to go home and come to mass the next morning. They listened, but stonily, and stayed where they were.

  ‘Maybe it will settle,’ William said to Bridget. The hotel was closed, and they sat in the parlour, the usual noises of the boisterous Ballarat Saturday night jollification quite absent. William put another log on the fire. Despite it being December, the night was bitter. ‘They say most of the men went out of the stockade to sleep at home. And maybe, tomorrow being Sunday, there may be more contemplation and less speculation.’

  Bridget got up and fetched a brighter lamp. ‘I can’t sleep, Billy. It’s such a fearful time. Will you read to me?’

  So he got the book of Robbie Burns’s poems that they both had read and liked very much, and he read to her, with her head across his lap, stroking her forehead and sometimes kissing it. Neither had the inclination to move so William snuffed the lamp. They sat in the big armchair, pulled near the fire, a blanket over them, and fell asleep there.

  ‘Listen!’ Bridget woke William. He opened his eyes and saw dawn was coming, although it wasn’t full light. There was the sound of gunfire from the Eureka field. It must be the stockade, he knew. Fainter than the fire, he heard the shouts and screams of men.

  ‘Oh Billy, oh Billy,’ Bridget said, but he was up and pulling on his boots and getting his coat. ‘Billy, don’t go.’

  ‘They may need help. You stay here; don’t open the door to anyone you don’t know; get some water warming. Wake McCrae; tell him I’ve gone to do what I can. Wake the little maid, she’s a good girl.’

  Bridget opened the window and they could hear clearly now that the fight was on.

  William went out into the half-light in Main Street and ran up towards the Eureka field, the stockade being a mile or more distant. There were doors opening, people peering out, a few like him making for the stockade. He had run about half a mile when he met two men, streaked with blood, carrying another man in a blood-soaked blanket.

  ‘Captain Ross,’ said the man. ‘Bridegroom of our flag. We don’t know where to take him.’

  ‘Bring him to the Star,’ said William. He turned back down towards the hotel with them, taking a corner of the blanket, feeling the dead weight of Ross. ‘We’ll get a doctor. He’s bleeding a lot.’

  ‘He’s very bad, but we hope he might be saved. He fell fighting in front of his flag, shot in the groin.’

  ‘What happened up there?’

  ‘Troopers and police came down from the government camp to the stockade, just before dawn. They fired on the diggers,’ puffed one of the men. ‘’Twas a slaughter. The men fought bravely, but most had gone home for the night; only a hundred or so were left. The soldiers fired on us in cold blood.’

  ‘They were killing the wounded,’ said the other man, a sob in his voice. ‘Sticking their swords through hurt and wounded men already down.’

  ‘Are many wounded needing help?’ They were puffing, trying not to jostle Ross, but hurrying, for there was more blood coming from his wound, so the blanket was slippery with it.

  ‘Many are wounded, but they’re busy going about the business of killing them.’ The man said it bitterly, near tears. ‘Our boys fought back though; the pikemen kept at it till they was downed.’

  Martin the nightwatchman opened the door of the hotel. ‘Charlie Ross this is,’ said William, indicating the blanket.

  ‘Captain Ross,’ said one of the bearers.

  ‘Fetch a doctor, Martin,’ William said. ‘And tell any you meet that needs attention or sanctuary that they can come here.’

  By the time they got Ross to a bed, there were already other men at the door, one lad with a bad gunshot wound in his leg, supported by one of his fellows, another with a sword cut on his arm.

  Ross was barely conscious, his face pale, a most handsome man still. Bridget, very pale herself, for she did not like the sight of blood, was tearing up a sheet. She steeled herself and cut Ross’s trousers. She quickly washed the wound and bound it to stop the bleeding, then elevated him on pillows.

  ‘We need blankets to keep him warm,’ Bridget said to William and he ran upstairs and got all the blankets from the cupboard there, then started the fire in the kitchen to boil up water and roused Cook to start cooking for the wounded men. And McCrae was up and about and similarly engaged, giving those that needed it a brandy, and wrapping them in blankets to stop their trembling.

  Bridget got the boy with the bad leg to tear more sheets while she washed and tended his wound, keeping him talking so he would not look at the injury, which was a bad one.

  ‘Is Peter Lalor all right?’ she asked him.

  ‘He fell,’ said the boy. ‘They hid him in the logs, but he may have died since. He was shot in his arm and bleeding terrible. And Thonen too, you know, the little lemonade man that could play chess so well? He was shot in the face, a mouthful of bullets, stone dead.’

  ‘And Frederick Vern?’ she asked.

  ‘Someone said he ran away.’

  ‘And the soldiers? Did none of them get hurt?’

  ‘They were fired upon and some fell. Captain Wise, who just came up last week. Our Patrick Curtain, you know him, he drinks here, he and his pikemen fought like demons. I don’t see that many of them will live.’

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘the fighting Irish, and you’re one of them now,’ and she tousled his head, for he was little past a boy, and wounded though the lad was William saw him blush. He gave the lad a draught of whisky, at the same time taking in the news of the death or wounding of those he knew to be there, feeling the horror of the battlefield.

  There was a banging on the door and there was Martin and the doctor. Behind them were three troopers, looking very fearsome. Martin and the doctor burst in and then William and Martin stood fast behind McCrae to block the troopers. ‘There’s no wounded here, Mr McCrae,’ said Martin. ‘Tell them there’s no wounded.’

  ‘We
want that man Ross,’ said the trooper, in a voice strangled high with excitement.

  McCrae faced the troopers very coolly. ‘The ’otel is closed,’ he said, ‘on account of Commissioner Rede’s orders, and I’m not opening it for anyone.’

  ‘We were told Ross came here.’

  ‘I was told he couldn’t go nowhere on account of the wounds inflicted by the likes of you,’ said McCrae. He stepped forward aggressively, William and Martin stepping forward with him. ‘I got breakfasts to make for my guests.’ And at that moment, Charity the bulldog, for the first time in her short sweet life, began to behave as a bulldog should – snarling and leaping towards the troopers in a way that meant business. McCrae had a moment to shout ‘Don’t you ever think you’ll ever get served in my ’otel,’ and then he slammed the door in their faces.

  More wounded came, some so bad that Martin was sent out for a priest to minister last rites.

  Bridget had nursed Ross, and watched fearfully as he grew paler and paler, his breathing slower and slower. She called down the stairs to William. A few minutes later, just after nine o’clock that morning, Captain Charles Ross of Canada died. Bridget cried as she closed his eyes, and together she and William laid out Ross’s body on the big cedar table in the parlour where they usually served tea. They stood together, looking at him, then Bridget fell into William’s arms.

  ‘God damn them, God damn the bastards! The bloody bastards!’

  She was crying and angry and her words surprised him for he’d never supposed she knew such words (although later he realised that she must, since she had stopped men in the bar using them most nights). He held her tighter, for he felt the same anger and despair for the loss of life around them, and the despicability of the camp. In that black moment they both felt how much they needed the other. They held tight to each other for a few minutes more, then went back to work.

  They worked all day as others came in, not all wounded, but shocked and streaked with the blood of others. They fed them, cleaned them and gave them drinks, working harder and more solemnly than any other day.

  Later, when McCrae sent word up to the troopers that Ross had died, the officer said, ‘God damn glad at it!’ While the diggers had fought bravely, many more of them were killed than the soldiers or police. It was thought about thirty diggers perished in the dawn raid, and seven or eight soldiers. Over a hundred prisoners were taken, not just from the stockade, but others seen around the town, and they were crammed together in a lock-up at the camp.

  That same Sunday afternoon, there were funerals for the fallen diggers. William and Bridget stood outside the hotel, joining others on each side of Main Street to bear witness to the procession of men following the coffins up to the cemetery. They heard Peter Lalor was still alive, although badly wounded, and was to be brought back secretly to the priest’s house to have his wounds tended by a doctor. William volunteered to ride to Geelong to tell Alicia Dunne, Lalor’s sweetheart, that he was alive.

  The next night, William crept out of town. He had to skirt the soldiers, for it was curfew still. Bridget was sick with worry at him going, for the troopers had shot at people, killing a woman and child in a tent when the bullets went astray, and wounding a horse dealer who was on business. But William knew the field and its shadows well, and made his way to a track off the Geelong Road, through the fields and the bush, well away from the soldiers. A fellow had a horse waiting for him on the track.

  It was a moonlit night, which made it harder to avoid the troopers, but meant he was able to ride fast, although it was a hard and dangerous ride. He made good time to the staging post, where word had been left by a coach driver to have a fresh horse waiting. He crept in and found the hotel keeper.

  ‘There was troopers sniffing round earlier,’ the hotel keeper said. ‘We made out they had woken us from a most deep slumber and they went off, most likely to bed, the lazy fellows. But I’d advise you still – stay off the road.’

  When William arrived in Geelong, he thought there might be troopers watching Alicia Dunne, so he made careful arrangements to meet her at a friend’s house, and to check they were not spied upon.

  ‘Praise be to God,’ she said, when she heard her sweetheart was still alive, her face flooding with relief.

  ‘He will lose the arm,’ William told her, ‘but the worst is passed and he has survived that.’

  Alicia gasped, but then composed herself. ‘The priest has been praying for him. And myself too, of course.’

  ‘He fought most bravely,’ said William. ‘And we hope not in vain, for many men’s hearts are with him.’

  ‘Thank you, thank you, for coming to tell me.’

  William told her more of what had happened at the stockade, how bravely Peter and the men had fought, who had fallen, that Captain Ross had died, how the town was solemn, but not broken. She tried to persuade him to have a meal and to rest, but he was anxious to get back to Ballarat.

  ‘I have my own sweetheart there,’ he told her, ‘and I don’t like to leave her at such a time.’

  She thanked him again, gave him some food for the journey and a small gift of a handkerchief for Bridget.

  As he rode back, he was eased in his mind from seeing Alicia Dunne, but he reflected that whatever happened now, it would not be the same Ballarat that he had known, that things would be changed forever.

  And he found it changed between himself and Bridget, for now she wanted to share his bed. ‘And our lives, for we will always be together.’ So that day after the Eureka Stockade battle was the day they became man and wife, which meant of course that she would marry him, although she took her time doing that.

  ‘You’re a man who’ll be faithful to the good things in life,’ she said, for once serious. ‘And you value the lives of others.’ He knew he and she were making love because it was life in the midst of all that death, in the way that people ate and drank and played music at a wake, to assert the spirit of life and the living in the dark face of death.

  In Ballarat there was shock at the terrible toll of deaths, but the people had no fear of or softening towards the authorities who had commanded these deaths. All the bad things that had been said in heat about Humffray were gradually dropped, as it was seen that Humffray was at one with the cause of the diggers, if not with the methods of some. Humffray worked with others to get up a petition for amnesty for the 120 prisoners that were taken. Many men worked tirelessly to get signatures, and four thousand signed it. The government let most of the prisoners go, but thirteen were charged with high treason and were taken to Melbourne to stand trial.

  There were huge demonstrations in Melbourne and elsewhere in favour of the diggers, and a strong show of opposition to the government by the people of Victoria. The carnage at Eureka had put the people solidly behind the diggers.

  Peter Lalor had a price on his head, as did others, but the authorities put the largest price, 500 pounds, on the head of Frederick Vern, which caused wry comment, for although Vern had made many speeches and declarations about liberty, he had not been at the stockade.

  It was known by many in the town where Lalor was hiding, but there was no fear of anyone betraying him. After his injured arm was amputated in the priest’s house, he was taken to Geelong, where he was cared for by his Alicia. Others escaped to Geelong by the bush route, and one young American by coach, dressed in women’s clothing. It was not hard, it seemed, to outsmart the authorities.

  Frederick Vern stayed in Ballarat, despite the large reward for his capture. He too was safe, so safe he regularly visited the actress Mrs Spanhake, who was his lover. Sightings of Vern caused much mirth.

  ‘I seen a person,’ said Bridget one morning at breakfast, ‘wearing a brown apron and ugly check dress and the cap of the big bony Scotch woman that’s camped out at Warrenheip. And that person has long flowing locks, and rather beautiful eyes, but walks not even like the bony Scotchwoman, and nothing like a young woman, but rather like a young digger. And the person was going down in th
e direction of Mrs Spanhake, in desperate passion.’

  ‘And later,’ said William, ‘that same person walks out in Mrs Spanhake’s clothes, so tall that the ankles are showing rather scandalously, back to the tent at Warrenheip. Which makes you wonder, doesn’t it?’

  Events such as these relieved the tension of waiting for the trials of the thirteen men who had been accused of high treason. ‘On trial for their lives,’ William said, for, if found guilty, the men would be hanged. But from the first trial in February 1855, which was that of the Negro American John Joseph, it was clear no jury would convict. Nevertheless, Hotham insisted on the trials going ahead. With each acquittal, the man found not guilty was carried high by the crowd waiting outside the court, with great cheers and celebration. In Ballarat the people were equally jubilant and the bars were full.

  ‘And no licence hunts,’ said Bridget.

  The hated licences were soon abolished and replaced by a miner’s right, which carried the right to vote. Special mining courts were elected by miners, and in time many other reforms touched upon by the men who led the diggers through 1854 were granted, with both Lalor and Humffray becoming the first elected members of the parliament for Ballarat.

  William kept the newspapers and other bits and pieces concerning everything that had happened on the field in that year. Through Humffray’s influence, he’d always been a moral force man, a true democrat, but he also knew that those wilder and more impulsive men, some of whom had died on the field, had won the victory in a most solid way. While he felt the wastage of their death, remembering that day he had seen his friend Michael O’Connell fall, he also felt a debt to their rash courage on behalf of the city he loved. He knew now he would never leave, so close did his life feel woven into it.

  CHAPTER 9

  William remembered always the day that Robert had arrived in the colony. He was standing on the wharf at Geelong, awaiting the steamer from Melbourne, when the rain began pouring down, a sudden summer torrent. William’s clothes were quickly wet through, so thereafter the memory of the day Robert arrived always came with the smell of the wet wool of his suit.