The hellish tang of spent powder and burning wood hangs heavy in the air around the old Glenrowan Inn; the acrid stench of battle seems to ooze from every window. It drifts toward the hollows outside the ramshackle wood building where it settles like a shroud over a platoon of police officers.
Poor, frightened bastards. These are not the battle-hardened men of colonial legend. They're yobbos, most of them. Poor Irish. Born in Australia, yes, but to parents who were, as likely as not, dragged from their homeland in shackles. They're men just trying to make their way in a hard country. And now, here they are, facing off in a deadly confrontation against their own. Their commander, Francis Hare, one of the few veterans among them, is temporarily out of action, nursing a slight bullet wound to his wrist, and so, for the moment, they're on their own.
They've taken cover wherever they could find it. Behind string bark trees, and rocks, using boxes and barrels, making breastworks out of the detritus of life at the edge of the great Victorian bush.
The sounds of ripe panic can be heard from inside the building. There are still hostages in there, men, women, children. The infamous bushranger had bailed up the townspeople, as well as a couple of drifters, and herded them inside before the standoff began. There have been innocent victims. There will probably be more. It's tragic, of course. But there is no escaping it.
The gunfire has subsided a bit. But the silence is just as terrifying as the thunderous report of the pistols and the screech of the mini balls had been.
That's when they first see him, a spectral image, a large man emerging from the smoke and the confusion. He is wearing a homemade suit of armor, a breastplate fashioned of iron and a heavy helmet. In his hand, he carries a pistol. The police, two of them at least, open fire on him, but their bullets simply bounce off him. He fires back. Round after round. Once again, the air is filled with shrieking lead.
 |
| The local Constable, Bracken |
It takes the policemen a moment to collect their wits, and then they begin shooting beneath the armor. Bullets tear into the big man's legs and his groin; perhaps as many as 23 rounds have been fired at him, and three hit him. But even that isn't enough to bring the man down. It is only when he pauses to reload his cap and ball revolver that police pounce and wrestle him to the ground.
The officers struggle to subdue the wounded young man.
One wants to deliver the coup de grace. But another stops him.
 |
| Police Sergeant Steele, in charge that day |
Ned Kelly, the most infamous desperado in Australian history, one of the most legendary outlaws in the history of the English-speaking world, will not die in a hail of bullets. He'll dance at the end of a rope.
email
print
default
increase
decrease
