removed from their saddles and pipe-clayed leather, they too had little enough to go home to. I saw Mrs O’Sullivan advancing blindly while still writing, her head tucked in towards her husband’s shoulder.
Special constables, sworn-in gentlemen, were waiting on foot behind the cavalry and also advanced now from the riverside of Ann Street, delighted to be licensed to teach the trade unions a lesson. The chief charge of the mounted police came from Eagle Street and was led against the front of the procession and its leading flanks by Deputy Commissioner Cahill on his bay horse. As he spurred forward I could hear him bellow, Give it to them, boys! Into them!
When the charging horse and foot police and special constables found the ranks of the unionists at front too dense, they moved onto the pavement and down our flanks. I could feel the heat of horseflesh bearing down. Special constables also swarmed onto the footpaths on either side of Market Street, pursuing spectators and even the wives of workers, bludgeoning them with batons. I saw one special beating an old man, a mere onlooker. They were more vicious than the true police; they were fighting for their world order.
I found myself face to face with three real enough professional policemen, batons in hand.
Please, I said. Gentlemen, I am one of the chief marshals to keep order. Please let me speak to the commissioner.
Somehow I was not surprised when all three said to me such things as Fuck you for a foreign troublemaker, and began laying into me. I raised my hands but started to lose my footing. As I went to the ground with a whack on the temple, I had a sepia vision, like a sickly photograph, of troopers wading in among Amelia’s typists. Amelia, a little old stick of a woman, lunged at Deputy Commissioner Cahill, running her hatpin through his upper leg and withdrawing it. A policeman grabbed her wrist from behind, another wrapped his arms around her frail waist and lifted her off her feet. Rising again, with bile in my mouth, I tried to go to Amelia. But I could not see her. All was chaos and our marchers were teeming back through Market Square, looking for safety in the streets behind it. Then there was Paddy Dykes the silver miner. Take my arm, Tom, he yelled. I was happy to do so.
Supporting me, the silver miner was also surrounded. I ought to tell you I am writing for the Australian Worker newspaper, he informed the police. I am a journalist.
They actually paused to listen to this little bantam. A special constable moved in to swipe him with a baton. But he cried, Do you want to be named and shamed in the press? I have your number.
Even though that was not the truth, the baton-wielder backed off. He had extraordinary authority, this little red-headed fellow from Broken Hill.
More constables arrived and dragged me away from Paddy to an area where horse-drawn wagons waited to convey us to magistrates. Inside the dark wagon were Suvarov and also Rybakov. My head throbbed and I heard my voice from a distance as I told Rybakov he should not have marched. The others compared bruises and cursed the special constables as prize bastards.
Beneath the main police station, I now had my first experience of an Australian holding cell, but it was not an extended stay. We were taken upstairs in groups to appear before a bench of three magistrates. Some of my marshals were in my group. The magistrates looking down on us had a severity in their faces they had probably got too jaded to use against burglars and vagrants, their normal diet.
I was astonished to see Hope appear in a wig and a black robe. She was wonderful to see, and angelic beside the magistrates.
The chief magistrate called on her in a tight voice. You represent these men, Mrs Mockridge?
She said she did. She began our defence. Hardly any of the marchers knew that permission had not been given for the march, she argued. Even the organisers did not know, since the commissioner’s refusal had come so
Special constables, sworn-in gentlemen, were waiting on foot behind the cavalry and also advanced now from the riverside of Ann Street, delighted to be licensed to teach the trade unions a lesson. The chief charge of the mounted police came from Eagle Street and was led against the front of the procession and its leading flanks by Deputy Commissioner Cahill on his bay horse. As he spurred forward I could hear him bellow, Give it to them, boys! Into them!
When the charging horse and foot police and special constables found the ranks of the unionists at front too dense, they moved onto the pavement and down our flanks. I could feel the heat of horseflesh bearing down. Special constables also swarmed onto the footpaths on either side of Market Street, pursuing spectators and even the wives of workers, bludgeoning them with batons. I saw one special beating an old man, a mere onlooker. They were more vicious than the true police; they were fighting for their world order.
I found myself face to face with three real enough professional policemen, batons in hand.
Please, I said. Gentlemen, I am one of the chief marshals to keep order. Please let me speak to the commissioner.
Somehow I was not surprised when all three said to me such things as Fuck you for a foreign troublemaker, and began laying into me. I raised my hands but started to lose my footing. As I went to the ground with a whack on the temple, I had a sepia vision, like a sickly photograph, of troopers wading in among Amelia’s typists. Amelia, a little old stick of a woman, lunged at Deputy Commissioner Cahill, running her hatpin through his upper leg and withdrawing it. A policeman grabbed her wrist from behind, another wrapped his arms around her frail waist and lifted her off her feet. Rising again, with bile in my mouth, I tried to go to Amelia. But I could not see her. All was chaos and our marchers were teeming back through Market Square, looking for safety in the streets behind it. Then there was Paddy Dykes the silver miner. Take my arm, Tom, he yelled. I was happy to do so.
Supporting me, the silver miner was also surrounded. I ought to tell you I am writing for the Australian Worker newspaper, he informed the police. I am a journalist.
They actually paused to listen to this little bantam. A special constable moved in to swipe him with a baton. But he cried, Do you want to be named and shamed in the press? I have your number.
Even though that was not the truth, the baton-wielder backed off. He had extraordinary authority, this little red-headed fellow from Broken Hill.
More constables arrived and dragged me away from Paddy to an area where horse-drawn wagons waited to convey us to magistrates. Inside the dark wagon were Suvarov and also Rybakov. My head throbbed and I heard my voice from a distance as I told Rybakov he should not have marched. The others compared bruises and cursed the special constables as prize bastards.
Beneath the main police station, I now had my first experience of an Australian holding cell, but it was not an extended stay. We were taken upstairs in groups to appear before a bench of three magistrates. Some of my marshals were in my group. The magistrates looking down on us had a severity in their faces they had probably got too jaded to use against burglars and vagrants, their normal diet.
I was astonished to see Hope appear in a wig and a black robe. She was wonderful to see, and angelic beside the magistrates.
The chief magistrate called on her in a tight voice. You represent these men, Mrs Mockridge?
She said she did. She began our defence. Hardly any of the marchers knew that permission had not been given for the march, she argued. Even the organisers did not know, since the commissioner’s refusal had come so
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