Eureka - The Unfinished Revolution (63 page)

And soon.

Friday night, 1 December 1854, Government House, Toorac, it has come to this

Truly, Sir Charles Hotham has never wanted it to come to this. Yes, he was firm from the beginning that the diggers would have to pay their license fee come what may, and yes, even on his first visit to Ballarat he cast his experienced military eye over the layout against the day that military action might have to be taken against the locals. It is also true he failed to immediately act on every overture by the diggers to find a peaceful solution, so perhaps it was always going to come to this.

But now that it has reached this impasse, now that there seems no recourse but to take harsh military action, all Hotham can do is give instructions to the Ballarat authorities to keep that action in check. He reminds them, in written instructions, to ‘enforce the existing laws with temper, moderation and firmness’.

Wee hours, early Saturday morning, 2 December 1854, Ballarat, phantoms in the night

Again and again and again and
AGAIN!

All through the night in
both
camps the alarm goes up that they are about to be attacked. Inside the Stockade, seemingly every hour, the cry, ‘The military are coming!’ is heard, only to be proved false each time.

Inside the Government Camp, at 4 o’clock in the tortured morning, the soldiers become
so
convinced that 400 rebels are about to set upon them that a company of soldiers bursts forth ready to beat the attackers back, only to find . . . it is only the phantoms of their imagination. Them and the moon gazing down benignly. In the far, far distance, a kookaburra, getting ready to catch a worm, is heard to laugh – possibly at them – but it, too, is all alone.

Though they all remain on duty, and on edge, no attack eventuates.

From dawn to midday, Saturday, 2 December 1854

This morning could have been made by the Lord for the Garden of Eden . . .

Though the night before has been exceedingly cold, wet and stormy, now the sun is shining brightly, all the birds are singing and the butterflies of summer are swarming to the warming. And yet, look at what the rest of God’s creatures, the two-legged variety frequently seen to be smoking pipes, are up to on this day.

The sun has risen on what is no fewer than two armed camps, separated by a large gully, flying different flags – one standing for the establishment, the other proclaiming a new power in the land and separation from the old order. The men in each camp glower across the gully at the other, wondering just who will make the first move.

‘The portents of battle could be read in the distraction around,’ John Lynch would record. ‘The air seemed charged with strife. Ordinary business was paralysed, the coming struggle engrossing all thoughts.’

All work on the diggings has ceased. Rede has ordered the public houses and post office closed, and no civilians are permitted in the township. When a mounted trooper from Melbourne arrives with dispatches, he is fired upon from somewhere near the Eureka line and arrives at the Camp shaken and furious.

At that Camp, the soldiers are nothing if not busy. That raspy sound? It is many of the soldiers taking their special files to sharpen their bayonets – back and forth, back and forth, up and down, up and down, round and round. They are not sure precisely when they will be using these bayonets; they can only feel a growing certainty that it will likely be sometime soon.

Outside the Camp, pickets are being posted to ensure that no-one approaches within 100 yards.

———

Elsewhere on the diggings, while those inside the Stockade enjoy broad support for what they are doing, many diggers have qualms. One of them is Samuel Lazarus, who has barely been able to sleep for two nights, such is his anxiety.

‘One topic of conversation engrosses the attention of diggers & storekeepers,’ he records in his diary. ‘Those whose means enable them are sending their families away while others whose poverty compels them to keep their wives & families amidst the scene of threatened dangers are awaiting the approach of events.’

Similarly, the correspondent for
The Melbourne Morning Herald
contemplates what might occur if the diggers actually attacked the Camp, as is rumoured: A large majority were with the diggers, but were also in favour of moral force only being used, as they dreaded that should the diggers obtain possession of the Camp, a state of confusion and insecurity as to property would ensue.’ For if the forces of law and order really are destroyed, then who can protect those who have the best gold-claims by virtue of that law?

———

On the Eureka they are either getting ready for an onslaught of soldiers or getting ready to launch their own attack – no-one is yet sure. Up and about from well before dawn, with their night-time lookouts now relieved and fresh lookouts posted so the rebels will not be taken by surprise, many of the men are going through their drills, marching back and forth, shouldering arms, while others are sorting out whatever ammunition they have. Those who have previously served their own country’s military are trying to awaken long-forgotten skills; those who are new to such practices are trying to pick up the basics. In one corner of the Stockade, Friedrich Vern is holding court, giving all and sundry his copious views on exactly the kind of tactics that should be used when the soldiers come. And it is he who has made the decision to expand the Stockade a little so that it now goes right across the road from Melbourne. Any reinforcements, any supply columns coming up that road, will now have to pass through them.
Und
. . .
zey
. . .
von
’
t!

Just as the last soft light of dawn gives way to the fullness of the day, a stream of diggers who slept in their own tents the night before begins to return to the Stockade. A few hours later, the divisions of Captain Ross and Captain Nelson, who have been out to Warrenheip, waiting to ambush whatever reinforcements are on their way from Melbourne, also return. The renewed presence of these two companies of armed men gives ever more energy and confidence to the rebels. With this surge, as Carboni recalled, ‘the scene became soon animated, and the usual drilling was pushed on with more ardour than ever’.

Around 10.30 in the morning, an extremely worried Father Smyth, dressed in his clerical garb, makes his way into the Stockade. He immediately begs Lalor to be allowed to address those of his flock who are in the Stockade.

The Father is no fool: he knows that the whole situation is a powder keg where just one spark is capable of setting the whole thing off. An editorial in today’s edition of
The Ballarat Times
, written by Henry Seekamp, sets the tone and is being passed from hand to hand by those diggers who can read English:

Those men who have the power and can exercise it will take the law into their own hands and enforce their principles where the Government now little expect. Instead, therefore, of the diggers looking for remedies where none can be found let them strike deep at the root of rottenness and reform the chief government . . . If they are not satisfied the gathering clouds of popular indignation will burst like a whirlwind over guilty and suspecting heads and sweep the length and breadth of the land
.

Yes, the good Father knows, despite Commissioner Rede’s ongoing refusal to bend even a little bit, he must personally do everything he can to stop this madness – now.

Lalor, a Catholic to his core, cannot deny the priest’s request to speak to his men. The opportunity to listen to the soothing words of a priest is embraced by the large contingent of devout Catholics among the rebels.

And yet most of the Father’s words are not so much sayings of solace as words of warning. Smyth wishes to tell them, as a man free to move between opposing camps, that they must understand the forces they are up against. The Government Camp is awash with men under arms, ‘some seven or eight hundred strong’ with another squadron of mounted police just arrived from Castlemaine a few hours earlier – and they still have more men on their way from Melbourne at this very time!

Bravery is one thing, he says, but bloodshed without gain is quite another, and they must understand exactly just how hopeless their position is. In short, as good Catholics he does hope that they are men of peace and he desires to see as many of them as possible at Mass on the morrow in that rickety wooden building up at the Gravel Pits that he is pleased to call his ‘chapel’. And he hopes that in the meantime they will reflect on his words and the duty they bear to their families to keep themselves safe.

Yes, Father. Thank you, Father, and God bless you, too, Father. The priest is known to be a good man and is listened to respectfully, but precious few choose to lay down their arms because of his admonitions. What most of them are fighting for is justice, and a democracy too long denied them. First in Europe, and now here. They have had enough. In this fight, there are more important things than personal wellbeing.

In fact, it is only a short time after this that some of the diggers ask the question: Why wait to be attacked? Why not attack the government forces ourselves, before their reinforcements arrive?

It is a view put most forcefully by the journalist John Manning, who with every passing day is less a believer that the pen is mightier than the sword – the musket and pike, in the hands of a band of committed men, is mightier than both of them. The diggers number in their
thousands
, and the troops are still only in their hundreds. With one enormous attack, the diggers would surely overwhelm them!

Lalor is not convinced, and though he is firm in his order that, ‘If the soldiers attack you, resist them,’ he does not want to take the step of attacking first.

Others – most particularly George Black and Tom Kennedy – agree with Lalor and feel it is more important to stay on the defensive and let the Redcoats come to them. Though Kennedy, at least for the moment, is with Lalor and Black on the winning side of this argument, he shortly afterwards makes himself scarce, returning to his tent to be with his wife and four children.

———

Once the newly formed companies are properly organised, it is Friedrich Vern who gives quick instructions as to which ones must defend which part of the Stockade. At 11 o’clock a yell goes up: a report has just come in that the Redcoats have been spotted emerging from the Camp. Quickly each company races to its appointed part of the perimeter, even as hurried improvements to the bulwark are made – more slabs added, more earth heaped to its side as a protection against flying musket balls, more nooks filled with spare bits of wood.

Unbeknownst to the diggers at the Stockade, the Redcoats are merely making a preliminary sortie to deal with other groups of angry diggers who have started to gather, in particularly large numbers about Bath’s Hotel. No, it is not yet a riotous assembly, but it has the potential to become so and the Camp is not taking any chances.

Strangely, however, when these diggers are told to disperse, they reply very pleasantly, ‘We’ve only come here to get out of the way of the mob, and would be very willing to be sworn as special constables.’

Told of this, Commissioner Rede is astonished that this could really be the case, and frankly doubtful. Nevertheless, he decides to give them the benefit of the doubt and sends over two magistrates to swear them in.

And, sure enough . . .

The magistrates have no sooner arrived than the cry goes up, ‘Joe!’
‘
Joe!
’
‘JOE!’ The diggers break out into derisive, hooting laughter. Under such trying circumstances Rede has no hesitation in sending out Civil Commissary George Webster to read the now rather familiar Riot Act, at which point the mounted police move in to enforce the order to disperse and clear the diggers from the township and away from the hotel. It is noticed that many of them are insolently carrying poorly secreted revolvers inside their shirts, but at least they obey – even if two more diggers are arrested in the process. They are dragged away to the lockup, where they can see firsthand how their mates imprisoned the day before are faring.

And then another report comes in

‘A body of armed men [is] marching in order around the Black Hill,’ the breathless messenger gets out, ‘as if to take the Camp in the rear.’

They are reportedly around 300 strong, while there are 1200 on Bakery Hill and 400 collected about the township – some 2000 diggers all up. Doing what, exactly?

Exactly. Rede reports to his superiors, ‘[The diggers] were in hopes that we would go out to disperse the armed men on Bakery Hill, in which case those on the township were to take the Camp in the rear and burn it, and the Black Hill people were to have made a diversion also.’

Saturday morning, 2 December 1854, Government Camp, lockdown

Just inside the picket fence that marks the extended boundary of the expanding Government Camp, all along Lydiard Street, myriad horses are munching on the fodder that has been fed to them by their exhausted masters. All around, fresh tents have been pitched on every spare bit of space to squeeze in the latest arrivals from the 12th and 40th Regiments. Everywhere there is hustling, bustling movement as troops drill, bugles sound, supplies are handed out. Extra security measures are taken on every building and, indeed, the palisade itself.

Yes, a part of the influx of people into the Camp are those flitting figures with nervous, darting eyes, never sure who is watching their entry – the government spies who have just come from the Eureka to report on the doings of the diggers. So it is on this morning that Captain Thomas receives a full briefing from one of his spies who has managed to inveigle himself right into the heart of the rebels.