Tasmania, 1877.
After a decade of hunting escaped convicts and bushrangers, Constable Charlie Harris has kept the peace in the quiet farming town of Ross, where the biggest crimes are drunken punch-ons. Then he captures Tommy Oliver, a member of a notorious bushranger gang, who offers him a deal he can't refuse: passage to the mainland in exchange for revealing the identity and location of the gang's enigmatic leader, Hannibal.
Wanted for a string of burglaries and murders, Hannibal and the gang have eluded capture for years, and they won't sit back and let Tommy Oliver give up their leader, and that puts the town of Ross and its constable squarely in their sights...
Can Ross hold out until reinforcements arrive to take Tommy Oliver to Launceston, or will Constable Harris be forced to choose between his oath to protect the town and his word to protect a bushranger's life?
I don't know about the words punch ons though. I'd use drunken brawls or fisty-cuffs or drunken biffs but you are the writer and you do a might fine job.
Fair enough! I think "punch-ons" is a fairly new word though, often meaning everyone in. The old school term was "a bar-room brawl" or one on one "a bit of a biff" or nothing serious "fisty-cuffs".
Spelled 'fisticuffs' I think. Punch-on is perfectly respectable slang though. If you want REALLY old slang, try 'wigs on the green' for a brawl. As a phrase survived here in Aus a lot longer than its place of origin.