The True Story of the KellyGang of Bushrangers Chapter 20 page 2

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Immediately there was a rush of sobbing women and children into the open air, and their appearance was the signal from renewed firing from the police. A challenge came from someone, ‘Who goes there?’, and, in spite of the answer, ‘Women and children,’ the shots still continued. Mrs Jones’ little boy was taken out by a man who carried him in his arms. Miss Jones was wounded in making her escape, but she and many others reached a place of safety with their lives. The platelayer, Reardon, and his wife were delayed in their exit from the hotel, for they had to wait for one of the children, whose limbs were cramped from lying beneath a bed for safety, and they were all driven back to the hotel by the hotness of the fire which met them as they sallied into the open and approached the police lines.

This firing upon women and children, even in the darkness and the fist confusion of the fight, was bad enough, but far more shameful is the fact that it continued after day had broken and more police had arrived on the scene, so that forces were ample to checkmate any possible move by the outlaws. It was daylight, or almost daylight, when the Reardon family made their second attempt to leave the house. Dan Kelly had given them permission, but said they would all be shot by the police. Dan Kelly has always regarded as a cruel and bloodthirsty villain, who took a pleasure in killing for its own sake, and, on former occasions victims of the gang’s exploits certainly believed that they owed their lives simply to Dan’s fear of his elder brother. But here at least, to do him justice, he showed more manly spirit. According to Mrs Reardon, he spoke to her a little before she left the house for the second time. ‘If you escape’, he said, ‘see Hare and tell him not to let his men fire any more till daylight, so that all these people may go in safety. When the house is empty, we will fight for ourselves.’

Mr Hare was then wounded, and Mrs Reardon had again to face the undisciplined police fire. This time she escaped from the ferocious friends of order. A sergeant of police, in spite of her screams of mercy, fired directly at her as she ran, and afterwards she showed bullet holes in the cloak with which she wrapped her baby. Her son begged her to go back, crying that she would be shot, but she refused, saying that it would be just as well to die in the open as in the house, and ultimately she reached the police lines unhurt. Her husband and her son, however, were less fortunate, being driven again to the house, the later receiving a bullet wound in the back as he crawled upon the ground for safety. The senseless ferocity of the police would be hard to believe if it were not confirmed from evidence even among themselves, one constable swearing that he saw Mrs Reardon deliberately fired at, and that he himself threatened to shoot the man who did it should he fire again. Though normally a brave and cool-headed officer, Mrs Reardon’s assailant like others had been worked up to such a stage of pitiable excitement that he seemed not to know what he was doing.

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