PATERANGI AND WAIARI.
Falling back from pa to pa, Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto at last concentrated their forces in the great series of entrenchments at Pikopiko, Paterangi, and Rangiatea, defensive works intended to block the march of the Imperial and Colonial troops on the principal Kingite cultivations and food stores at Rangiaowhia. The chief fortification was Paterangi; the traces of this elaborate system of earthworks can be seen to-day close to Mr Harry Rhodes’ farmhouse on Paterangi Hill.
General Cameron’s headquarters were at Te Rore, on the Waipa, and there he camped for several weeks early in 1864. The principal engagement during this period of waiting—for Paterangi was too strong for frontal attack—was a lively skirmish at Waiari, on the Mangapiko River. Forty Maoris fell that day (14th February, 1864), and six British soldiers lost their lives.
Here, at Waiari, that free-roving and adventurous colonial corps the Forest Rangers had their first taste of sharp fighting in the Waipa country. We shall hear a good deal of those Rangers in the succeeding chapters. There were two companies of them, each [[37]]fifty strong. No. 1 Company was commanded by Captain William Jackson—afterwards Major Jackson and M.H.R. for Waipa—and No. 2 Company by Captain G. F. Von Tempsky, who as Major of Armed Constabulary fell in the bush battle of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, in Taranaki, in 1868. The Rangers were armed with Terry and Calisher breech-loading carbines and five-shot revolvers, and Von Tempsky’s men also used bowie-knives, made in Auckland from a pattern supplied by him, somewhat on the model of the bowie-knife of Arkansas and Texan fame.
The Rangers at Waiari were ordered to clear the Maoris out of the scrub which covered the old pa in the river-loop. They dived into the thickets, and soon killed or dispersed the Kingite warriors, and then covered the retreat of the main body of troops to Te Rore and Colonel Waddy’s advanced camp. The Rangers enjoyed the work so much that it was difficult to get them home to camp at Te Rore for their tea. The British dead and wounded had been removed, and as many as possible of the Maori dead were brought across to the north bank of the Mangapiko. General Cameron had ridden up from the main camp at Te Rore in time to witness the defeat of the Maoris in Waiari. The Rangers, covering the return of the troops, came under a heavy fire in front and from both flanks, and returned it with coolness and accuracy from the cover of the manuka and fern.
A veteran corporal of No. 1 Company (Jackson’s) recalls Colonel Havelock’s ire at the indifference of the frontiersmen to the bugle calls. “It was getting dusk,” he says, “and still all our Rangers had not come out of the scrub, and we could hear their carbines cracking in reply to the heavy banging of the double-barrel guns. Captain Jackson was standing alongside Colonel Havelock, A.D.C.—the son of the famous hero of the Indian Mutiny—who asked why the Rangers had not returned. Jackson replied in his blunt fashion that he didn’t know; he supposed they’d come out when they had finished their job. The ‘Retire’ was sounded again, but still our fellows kept popping away in the dusk. At last, Colonel Havelock, swearing that he would turn out the 40th Regiment and fire on the Rangers if they did not obey orders, called up all the buglers that could be found and told them to sound the ‘Retire’ all together. Presently our boys came out of the manuka and joined us, as pleased as kings with their afternoon’s hot work.”
A very few of those hard-fighting Rangers are left to recall the [[38]]incidents of a vanished phase of New Zealand life. Some—like Major Jackson—settled down to pioneer farming, but for others the warpath had attractions irresistible, and long after the battle of Orakau many of the young veterans strapped on their fighting gear again and followed “old Von” to Wanganui and Taranaki to do battle against the Hauhaus. The corps ceased to bear its distinctive name; most of its members returned to their sections of land in the military settlements on the confiscated Waikato land; some joined the Armed Constabulary. And when Von Tempsky fell to a Hauhau bullet before the stockade of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu it was a young officer who had been his subaltern in 1863–64, J. M. Roberts—now Colonel, and holder of the New Zealand Cross for valour—who coolly and competently extracted the rearguard after a terrible night in the forest of death. He had learnt his work well in Von Tempsky’s practical school in many a scout and in many a skirmish in a country where the name of the Forest Rangers is already but a dim legend, so quickly has the work of nation-making marched in New Zealand.
Von Tempsky was a clever artist in water-colours, and had a gift of writing animated narrative. He wrote a journal of events covering his service in the Waikato War, and his story of the fighting at Rangiaowhia, Hairini, and Orakau will be given in the chapters which follow. His account has the merit of being a participant’s direct description of the engagements; moreover, it now sees print for the first time.[1]
Among the notable figures of that day whom Von Tempsky describes in his journal was Bishop George Augustus Selwyn. There is a word-vignette of the great Bishop, riding unostentatiously with the army, his old pack-horse ambling along laden with his tent and simple camp gear. “What comfort the wounded and sick derived from his presence may be imagined,” wrote Von Tempsky. “Often have I followed with my eye his fine, manly figure wending its way on errands for the good of others; and the study of that man’s character, strongly impressed in a face where hard work has stamped its signet on high-bred features, would yield materials for an epic poem. How that man’s being has clung to a preconceived idea of his work in this country! How every fibre of his existence has wrapped itself round that one object, the improvement of the [[39]]aboriginal! Through good and evil times he has stood by his work, strong, fresh, after years of disappointment, unalterable in his purpose, even if in opposition to the good of his own race. There perhaps we find the one flaw in an otherwise almost perfect character.” [[40]]
[1] The original MS. narrative is in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington. [↑]
CHAPTER VII.
THE CAPTURE OF RANGIAOWHIA.
The first British soldiers to reach Te Awamutu marched in early on the morning of 21st February, 1864. This was General Cameron’s force, which outflanked the Maori defences at Paterangi and Rangiatea in a surprise night march, and invaded the chief source of food supplies—Rangiaowhia—the decisive strategic movement in the Waikato War.
MAJOR WILLIAM JACKSON
Major Jackson was a young settler at Papakura when he took command of the Forest Rangers in 1863. After serving throughout the Waikato War, he settled at Hairini and afterwards at Kihikihi. For many years he commanded the Te Awamutu Cavalry Volunteers. In the eighties he was M.H.R. for the Waipa electorate.
The following is Von Tempsky’s MS. narrative of the night march and the morning’s hot work at Rangiaowhia:—
“On 20th February, 1864, the bugle at headquarters, Te Rore camp, sounded, ‘Come for orders.’ Everyone, almost, knew what these orders were going to be; and great excitement consequently prevailed. The orders were that about half of the troops were to be under arms, in heavy marching order, at half past ten that night. The rest, with the luggage and so forth, were to follow in the day-time, leaving a sufficient garrison for Te Rore. At half past ten the dense columns of our force were drawn up in silence near headquarters. No bugle had sounded; the tents were to remain standing, and the cover of a moonless night was to hide our circumvention of the wily foe. I had the honour to command the advanced guard, composed of my Rangers and 100 men of the 65th under Lieutenant Tabuteau. Next followed the Defence Force under Colonel Nixon, and the Mounted Artillery, doing troopers’ service, under Lieutenant Rait, an active and energetic officer. The rest of the 65th, 70th, some of the 50th, and other detachments followed, Westrupp, with No. 1 Company, Forest Rangers, bringing up the rear, as Captain Jackson had not yet returned from Auckland. As far as Waiari the road enabled us to march in fours. Thence, however, Indian file had to be the order of the march. The importance of our redoubt at Waiari became now apparent to me, as its existence there served to mask our start. On that point alone was discovery from Paterangi to be apprehended. Once past it, our detour of the fern ridges made us nearly safe until we came close on to Te Awamutu. Mr James Edwards (half-caste guide) rode ahead of us, Captain Greaves, of the staff (70th) by his side, and a better combination of local knowledge [[41]]and military sagacity never led troops on a difficult march. The high fern had to be trodden down, principally by the advanced guard, but we were used to it and knew that honour of position had to be paid for. Ridge after ridge was passed, now and then a gully, but never very steep, so that packhorses and even bullock drays could easily follow our tracks on the morrow.”
MAJOR G. F. von TEMPSKY
(Killed at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, Taranaki, 1868.)
At dawn (to summarise Von Tempsky’s story) the troops neared Te Awamutu. It was known that at the entrance, by the pass, there was situated an old pa. It was not known whether it was now occupied or had been put into repair. The Rangers scouted on ahead and found it empty. The cocks at Te Awamutu mission station were now crowing, and the steeple of the church came into sight. Bishop Selwyn, and Mr Mainwaring as his aide, galloped along ahead to the mission station, whose native inhabitants “were under a theocratic flag of truce.” The column pushed on to Rangiaowhia. The young troopers of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry now dashed forward in advance to their first serious work.
“Rangiaowhia,” narrated Von Tempsky, “came soon into sight with a blue ridge of mountains at the back, its straggling houses between peach groves crowning cultivated ridges, with two prominent churches at a short distance from one another. Kahikatea forests straggled up to the village, here and there, and when we approached it nearer a succession of ridges with some swamp intervening showed us that we had been somewhat deceived in the distance. The rapid crack, crack of revolvers and carbines announced to us now that the troopers had not forgotten their spurs in getting ahead of us. We listened eagerly for the sound of double-barrel guns, and that sound also was soon heard. So the conflict had commenced, and that idea lifted our feet with the power of galvanism. We probably got there considerably ahead of the main body, but our blood was up, and we wanted to support our troopers in the arduous task of riding through streets lined with houses whence a desperate foe might have great advantage over mounted men. When, however, we got nearer to the thick of the firing, a mounted civilian, with some artillery troopers, met me and said that in that direction there was nothing for us to do; if we wanted to see a good body of men we should go to the Catholic Church, which was crammed full of armed Maoris. I at once took his advice, particularly as I had heard but few double-barrels lately in the direction of the Defence Corps. In extended order, with 100 of the 65th Regiment in support, [[42]]we advanced past several rows of deserted whares, from which, however, now and then some balls whistled past us. The church being our main object, we paid no attention to these minor matters. I sent Lieutenant Roberts with some men round the right flank of the church, and our circle gradually drew closer. I could see already some black heads at the windows—but of a sudden a white flag went up.
“ ‘Very well, lads,’ I thought, ‘then I shall take you prisoner.’ We advanced still nearer. Roberts’ signal announced to me that the church was surrounded, when I heard Captain Greaves’ voice calling to me from the rear:
“ ‘The General does not want you to press the Maoris any further.’
“ ‘Not take them prisoner, even?’
“ ‘No.’
“ * * * I obeyed, though I was fast consuming my tongue by merciless mastication. But honour is due to the order of a man like General Cameron, so I ordered my men off and marched to where the firing still continued.[1]
“The two churches lay more towards the left flank of the village. The firing continued more to our right near the centre of the village. As we approached that point we got a few long-range shots from distant whares, but took no notice of them.
“In passing a boarded house, however, one more like the building of a European than a Maori, two shots were rapidly fired at us from its verandah. I did not believe my eyes when I saw there a woman coolly sitting on the verandah and hiding a still smoking double-barrel underneath it. She was decently dressed in the semi-European style adopted by influential Maoris. She was oldish, and not very fair to look at, particularly as her time-worn features were bent into one concentrated expression of hatred—such a hatred as Johnson revered and you read of occasionally in old plays.
“I went up to her and had the gun taken away, looking at her all the time, not knowing whether I should laugh or feel pathetic—the coolness, the ugliness, and reckless hatred of this specimen of Maoridom puzzling my choice of sentiment exceedingly. I thought of passing on, just with a warning for future good behaviour, when [[43]]some officers shouted to me that ‘the old wretch’ had also fired at them, wounded a man of the 65th, and been warned already, and that I had better take her prisoner.
“Reluctantly I gave her in charge of one of my men, but accompanied the order with a Freemason’s sign which my man understood, the result of which was that the woman afterwards quietly slipped away unnoticed.
“Just as we started again we heard another couple of shots from the same house, and now thinking that some men might be inside I had the house surrounded.
“Just as Roberts got to the back part, another fairy burst from its door, and, running with the fleetness of a deer, dropped her gun just in time to have her sex recognised and respected. I was glad that her fleetness saved me from another female responsibility, and proceeded onward.
“I met Captain Bower, Adjutant of the Defence Corps, one of the Six Hundred at Balaklava. He looked fearfully excited, and hurriedly told me that Colonel Nixon had just been shot, and that the bullet had gone through his lung.”
Von Tempsky, describing what he then saw, says that a circle of soldiers of all regiments surrounded at some distance a nearly solitary whare with a very narrow and low door; in the open doorway lay the body of a soldier of the 65th, shot through the head. A constant firing of rifles into the house was carried on with little regard to the effects of cross-fire, and the narrator formed his men in a half-circle, in the safe radius of the “dead angle” of the house. It seemed that after the house had been first surrounded Colonel Nixon sent Lieut. T. McDonnell and Mr Mair, the interpreter, to ask the Maoris in it to surrender, assuring them of good treatment. A volley was the concise answer. Then the firing into the house commenced, but as the floor was below the level of the outside ground the Maoris were comparatively secure for some time. Then of a sudden an excited trooper of the Defence Corps dismounted, and dashed, sword and revolver in hand, into the whare. Some quick shots were heard, and nothing more was seen or heard of him. A man of the 65th rushed forward to ascertain the fate of the trooper, but, being covered and hampered by his roll of blankets and other paraphernalia, he stuck in the door and was shot in the head. The firing into the whare now became a perfect cannonade, and even Colonel Nixon could not abstain from firing with his revolver [[44]]at the open door. Stepping incautiously from behind the corner of a neighbouring whare, he received a bullet, fired from that open door.
“When we arrived,” resumes Von Tempsky, “some neighbouring whares had been set fire to with the view to communicating the fire to the all-dreaded one. But somehow this seemed to me an uncertain process, and unfair. So, looking round at my nearest men, I said, ‘We will rush the whare, boys.’
“ ‘Aye! Rush it, rush it!’ was echoed, and with one ‘Forward!’ about a dozen of us were round the door in an instant. Sergeant Carron had got ahead of me, and had poked his head into the low doorway. I stood impatiently behind him, just on one side of the door, thinking that we ought to take the body of the 65th man out of the way first. Carron then drew back his head and said to me:
“ ‘There is only one dead man inside, sir.’
“I could not quite understand this, though I could see that it was pitch dark inside, and so Carron might have been mistaken.
“At this moment Corporal Alexander, of the Defence Corps, had pushed his way between myself and Carron, and, squatting down in the low doorway, commenced to arrange his carbine for taking aim, evidently puzzled by the darkness—I urging him either to make room for us or jump in.
“A double-barrel thunders, discharged from the interior of the house, a bullet knocks through Alexander’s brain, and he drops backward. The doorway was now completely chocked with the two bodies. My men dragged away Alexander, and, after firing five shots of my revolver quickly into the corner from which I had heard the last report, I dragged the 65th man out of the door myself. At that moment, also, one of my men got shot in the hip—a fine young fellow, John Ballender. He staggered forward and dropped, never more to rise, though he lingered for months in hospital. (Note.—A Canadian by birth, by profession a surgeon, he served as a private with me. An excellent shot, and brave to a fault. I had known him first at Mauku. His comrades have erected a handsome marble slab over his grave at Queen’s Redoubt.)
“I now debated within myself whether the rush might not be renewed, as the door was clear now; but I saw that my men, even, had had enough of it, and were pointing significantly and triumphantly [[45]]to the flames that now commenced to lap over from the nearest burning whare to the fatal and now fated house. What the feelings of the inmates of that doomed fortress must have been passes almost the power of imagination. They must have heard by this time the crackling of the approaching fire; they must have felt the heat already. Could human nature hold out any longer in resistance?
“No! Behold, one man, in a white blanket, quickly steps from the door and approaches the fatal circle at some distance from us. He holds up his arms to show himself unarmed; he makes a gesture of surrender; he is an old-looking man.
“ ‘Spare him! Spare him!’ is shouted by all the officers and most of my men. But some ruffians—and some men blinded by rage at the loss of comrades, perhaps—fired at the Maori.
“The expression of that Maori’s face, his attitude on receiving the first bullet, is now as vivid before my mind’s eye as when my heart first sickened over that sight. When the first shots struck him he smiled a sort of sad and disappointed smile; then, bowing his head, and staggering already, he wrapped his blanket over his face, and, receiving his death bullets without a groan, dropped quietly to the ground. (Note.—Had all the men been with their regiments—that is to say, had had their own officers near them—this would not have happened. In that promiscuous crowd no one knew who one belonged to.)
“The flames now caught the roof. Could there be another being yet in that house of death? The roaring sound of approaching destruction inside the house, the certainty of death outside! What man can bear such wrath of fate?
“Behold! There is one such man! Like an apparition he suddenly stands in front of the door—stands bolt upright—and fires his last two shots at us. Defiance flashes from his eyes even as he sinks under a shower of bullets.
‘The house is one mass of flame—it is near falling—when another Maori bursts from it, gun in hand, and drops pierced by bullets while dauntlessly aiming at the foe. As he fell the timbers of the roof bent inward, the house tottered, and with a crash crumbled to pieces on the well-fought ground.
“Seven charred bodies of Maoris and the first Defence Corps man were found among the blackened ruins. That fortress had held ten defenders. What would not ten hundred of such defenders do when properly armed and commanded? Yet I am sorry to say [[46]]that much of this unyielding desperate disposition is based upon one of the worst if the strongest features in Maori character.
“After the fall of the house there remained nothing to do at Rangiaowhia. The General, fearing the results of straggling in such a rambling, extensive community as this, together with the presumed absence of water in the most important military points, decided on returning to Te Awamutu.
“On our way to Te Awamutu I had occasion to observe the peculiar insensibility to wounds in Maoris; the same that I had previously observed in North American Indians. I had seen an immense, brawny Maori lying on the ground covered with blood, Dr. Mouat, V.C., of the Staff, attending him with his usual skill and celerity. I thought that kindly attention but thrown away, for the Maori had a sabre cut over the head, a revolver bullet in his mouth, a shot through the liver, and a sabre cut over the back. He was carried in a stretcher half way to Te Awamutu, when he insisted on getting out, and walked the remainder of the way. I saw him the following day in hospital, sitting up among the female prisoners, chatting in such an unconcerned way and with such equanimity of expression in his features that I doubted the evidence of my eyes that this could be the same man I had seen on the previous day with four wounds, each of which would have prostrated for some time a European.”
A veteran of No. 1 Company of Forest Rangers, Mr Wm. Johns, of Auckland (formerly of Te Rahu), gives the following account of his experiences at Rangiaowhia:
“About a dozen whares were burned in the village. The fight extended from the head of the swamp, where Colonel Nixon was shot, right up to the Catholic Church, whence we drove the Maoris over the crest into the swamps, next the native racecourse. Some shots were fired at us from the English Church; some Maoris were inside the building. It was an open skirmish from then right along. There were not more than 200 Maoris altogether in Rangiaowhia that day, but they fought well, and had plenty of ammunition. After one of our fellows had been shot, my commanding officer said to me, ‘Corporal, take two men and see if there are any Maoris in the whare there,’ pointing to a house about twenty yards away. I posted the two men outside and stooped to enter the house, which was sunk in the ground, with a low entrance. As I entered I was felled by a terrific blow on the side of the neck, but deflected somewhat [[47]]by the edge of the doorway. I lay there stunned for some moments, and when I recovered I saw a Maori weapon, a long taiaha, lying beside me. [It is now in the Old Colonists’ Museum in Auckland; a small piece was nicked out of the blade of it by the doorway edge.] My men told me that the inmates of the whare had escaped by bursting through the thatch at the back, and got clear away. It was a very narrow escape for me, and I took the taiaha as a memento of it. I took no further share in the fight that day, but I was able to march back to Te Awamutu.” [[48]]
[1] Later in the day the Rangers had a skirmish with armed Maoris who occupied the Catholic Church, and drove them out of it, the natives finding that the walls were not bullet-proof. [↑]
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ENGAGEMENT AT HAIRINI.
On the afternoon of 22nd February, 1864—the day following the capture of Rangiaowhia—the British and Colonial forces were involved in a much sharper affair, a heavy engagement in which all three arms—horse, foot, and artillery—were used. This was the battle of Hairini Hill, a steep elevation about half way between Te Awamutu and Rangiaowhia; the name has since been transferred mistakenly to Rangiaowhia village. The present road follows exactly the military route of 1864.
From a photo in Ceylon]
OFFICERS OF THE 50th REGIMENT
(The 50th Regiment, 819 strong, arrived in Auckland from Colombo on 14th November, 1863. Colonel Waddy in the centre of the front row.)
Here the Maoris who came pouring out of Paterangi immediately they discovered that their works had been outflanked had hastily fortified themselves, burning to avenge the surprise capture of Rangiaowhia and the killing of their comrades. An incident of the day’s work was a sabre charge by the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry; this was one of the very few occasions on which cavalry charges were practicable in the Maori Wars.
Von Tempsky wrote the following narrative of his Rangers’ share in the afternoon’s fighting:
“At last about 1 o’clock orders came (to Te Awamutu camp), and away went the Rangers. I had received no order relative to my position or further operations; so, calculating to commit any errors on the safe side, I hurried my men past as many detachments as I could, and got them well in front by the time we had reached a commanding fern ridge, on which line of battle was formed. The firing had been going on already for some time between our skirmishers and the Maoris. I could now see their position plainly. There is a considerable rise just at the entrance to Rangiaowhia proper; the first considerable whares are on that hill; the brow of the same was crowned with a long stake fence, ditch, and low parapet, having been the common enclosure of a large field. It had been strengthened during the night and morning, and a very respectable length of line of black heads was bobbing up and down behind it. A swamp was at the foot of this hill, the main road avoiding it and turning more to our right flank. The right flank of the Maoris was covered by a still more impassable swamp [Pekapeka-rau], [[49]]so that their left flank was the only point needing much defence, a dense forest on that side giving them also contingent advantages.
“The 50th, under their brave old Colonel Waddy, and the Defence Cavalry Corps, under Captain Walmsley, as staunch an officer as ever put spurs to a horse, were on our extreme right; and were destined to do the work of that day, General Cameron and Staff personally superintending this particular work.
“We saw the 50th fix bayonets, and as they advanced on the main road the Maoris commenced a perfect feu d’enfer, and I, looking in vain for directions, led my men against the right flank of the Maoris.
“We had to cross several little gullies and rises; at each place affording the least shelter I breathed my men for a moment, and then dashed them again over the next exposed space. Three severe instalments of a lead shower rattled, thumped, and whistled round us; each time I put the men under shelter till the shower passed, and then rushed on again. As yet I had seen only one of my men hit.
“As we got into the swamp we just saw the gleam of the bayonets of the 50th close upon the left flank of the Maoris. We heard the British cheer, echoed it, and rushed on to the right of the position, where I also saw a peach-grove that might be of use to us.
“Of a sudden, while panting up the hillside, with an upper stratum of lead travelling over our heads towards our friends we had left behind us, I saw that long black line of heads waver. I heard confused cries and shouts presaging disorder—and lo!—it broke and fled—some to the right, where I saw the Defence Corps after them; and some to the left; to these we lent our company. Maoris have a natural affinity to swamp; there is a strong amphibious tendency in the brown man. Ducks are no more at home in the swamps than Maoris. Only in this instance the ‘being at home’ was extended perhaps beyond the wish of many by our carbines. So soon as we had reached the peach-grove which commanded the swamp to our left, we had a fine play upon the greater part of the Maoris who were trying to make their escape. I had some soldiers of the 70th with me who, seduced by the example of my men, had followed my fortunes faithfully that day. They were, however, despatched back to their regiment by the arrival of Colonel Carey of the Staff. [[50]]
“Some skirmishers still lurked between us and that part of Rangiaowhia where the two churches stood; so we took our way in that direction, getting now and then a sight of a Maori and a hearing of their bullets. I was just directing one of my foremost skirmishers to aim at a figure of a man which I could see behind a bush, when something struck me in the attitude as being nerveless like that of a wounded man. I gave the word to stop firing, and, surrounding the Maori carefully, as some sham being dead and then blaze into you, then approached him. Resting on his right elbow, his back against a stump, the left leg stretched from him with a large pool of blood around it, the Maori surveyed our approach without a start or a movement of a muscle in his face, even. Now, let me tell you that my men in the day of battle are not very confidence-inspiring objects to look at. What with dust, smoke, their wild dress, their armament, and faces wild with excitement of the hour, a man would be quite justified in hesitating to trust his life altogether to their keeping, not being able to see the golden sub-stratum of that desperado exterior. A calm, steady, almost indifferent look was fixed on me by the dark eye of the Maori. I made to him a gesture of friendship, and proceeded to examine his wound. An Enfield bullet had shattered his left leg below the calf, and he was rapidly bleeding to death. A boot-lace twisted under the knee had to do duty as a tourniquet, and the Maori’s shirt had to supply the bandages. One of our men who spoke a little Maori told him we would come back for him, and left him with water and some rum; the latter he refused taking.
“I had an idea that as the Catholic Church had proved once an asylum to the Maori, it might be occupied the same way to-day. I was determined to be beforehand with the Staff to-day at least, and pushed on by short-cut. Everything seemed quiet about the neighbourhood. The church door was locked, but as it might have been locked from the inside I had a carbine pointed into the lock, which pass-key proved to fit our requirements. I entered the church, found it empty, turned my men out again, and re-fastened the door to the best of my ability.
“Colonel Carey, of the Staff, then arrived, and gave me orders to guard the adjoining dwelling-house of the priest and permit no one to enter it. My men had by my permission gone to plunder the nearest whares. Their whole plunder was then put into the verandah of the priest’s house, and, putting a sentry over it, I dispersed [[51]]my men once more for ‘loot,’ as they now deserved to have a pull at Rangiaowhia. I remained to guard the priest’s house myself and ruminate over the day’s work.
“Colonel Weare, of the 50th, then made his appearance, and informed me that he had received orders to take charge of this house and grounds. I had no great objection to a transfer of responsibility, but when I was informed that nothing was to be removed from the ground, not even the loot my men had taken from the neighbourhood, now lying piled in the verandah, I most decidedly objected to such an unfair arrangement. A picket under a subaltern was then put over the premises, and Colonel Weare departed. I recalled my Rangers by my whistle, drew them up outside, and carried out myself every individual article belonging to them, not forgetting one or two articles of loot belonging to Colonel Weare, accidentally mixed with ours, considered already as safely acquired by right of seniority. It was to me about as interesting an interlude as could be found amongst the sad realities of higher interests around me. And I look back to my struggle with Colonel Weare for the loot of my men probably with the same amount of amusement as he does himself by this time. He put me under arrest. I took no notice of it, nor did General Cameron, who joked me the next day about it.”
The Forest Rangers’ entry into Te Awamutu that evening must have been a grotesquely picturesque spectacle. Von Tempsky wrote:
“An advanced guard under myself surrounded the stretcher of the chief Paul, whom we had picked up on the way back according to promise. This was serious and respectable, but the main body of the two companies that followed, borne down with the most promiscuous loot ever gathered, were a sight fit for the pencil of Hogarth. There were men representing a walking museum of fowls strung and hung all over their persons. There were men having the carcases of pigs strapped to their bodies; one even carried a live young sow, baby-wise in his arms, restraining its desperate struggles and screams by the strength of a powerful arm. There were men mounted on Maori horses, one of them my half-caste Sergeant Southee, decorated with feathers used at the Maori war dance. The whole two companies bristled with Maori spears, tomahawks, double-barrel guns, and so forth. I myself had a magnificent long-handled tomahawk, given to me by one of my men, who picked it up on the battlefield. I gave it to General Cameron. [[52]]
“I have since heard that our entry into Te Awamutu created not only admiration but envy, loot being such a scarce article in this war that even Commodore Wiseman could not help saying to a friend of mine, ‘Those rascally Rangers have got all the loot.’ In former days the Naval Brigade generally got ahead of the soldiers in that business, but now the agility of the Rangers had put the long-armed Jack Tar into the shade.
“In dismissing my men that evening, I could not but testify to their gallant conduct, particularly No. 1 Company, under Lieutenant Westrupp, who had followed me when I went a considerable pace, and when my own men, being in high fern, could not keep up with me. General Cameron, in acknowledging the good behaviour of the men, had another ration of rum served out to them that night, so that at the camp-fire our battles were fought over again with even more gusto and less risk.”
Another old-timer, an ex-Ranger in the Waikato, thus described to the present writer that triumphal march back from Rangiaowhia:
“We had found great stores of potatoes, pigs, and fowls lying ready to be carted to the big pa at Paterangi. The stuff was stacked here and there along the middle of the village between the two churches. When we marched back to Te Awamutu that night one of our fellows, Johnny Reddy, was leading, or rather driving, a pig by a rope. As we came near the mission station gate at Te Awamutu we saw General Cameron standing there with Bishop Selwyn. Reddy called out, ‘Make way for the Maori prisoner!’ The General ordered, ‘Arrest that man!’ But Johnny dropped his rope, left the pig, and bolted. All the same, he had a fair whack of that porker for his supper.”
The Royal Navy men, as a veteran recalls, did not come home from the battle quite empty-handed, for when they hauled their six-pounder field-piece in that evening it was loaded with Maori pigs and potatoes.
The day’s casualties numbered two soldiers killed, one of the Defence Force Cavalry mortally wounded, and fifteen others wounded, including Ensign Doveton, of the 50th. The Maoris lost about a score killed, beside many wounded, some of whom were captured and treated in the field hospital at Te Awamutu.