Accordingly, leaving Corporal Ryan and three or four men to protect the wounded captain and lieutenant, and relying on the main body of the troops soon finding them, he went slap-dash at the Maoris on the hill in front of him. The charge scattered the natives to a safe distance. Then, night coming on, McKenna and his party camped in a convenient spot in the bush. Very soon, however, this position became unsafe. So back along the bush path they trailed, firing at their invisible enemy as they went, and having some other wounded now thrown on their hands.
Owing to the darkness and the intricacies of the bush, the sergeant eventually lost his way, and, as he said afterwards, there was nothing to do but to sit down and wait for daylight. So all through the night they squatted on the ground, McKenna mounting guard with ears alert for the faintest sound of an enemy; but fortunately none came. And in the morning he had the satisfaction of leading his party back to camp to report that only one was killed and two were missing out of the thirty-eight men he had manœuvred so skilfully.
Sergeant McKenna received a warm word of commendation in the despatches from General Cameron, the Commander-in-Chief, for that piece of business, together with the Victoria Cross, the same honour falling to Corporal Ryan, whose devotion to Captain Swift, however, failed to save that gallant officer’s life. Several of the others who figured prominently in the affair were rewarded with the Distinguished Conduct Medal.
Two very brilliant individual exploits that I may note here won the V.C. for Major C. Heaphy of the Auckland Militia, and Lieutenant-Colonel (afterwards Major-General Sir) John Carstairs McNeill, of the 107th Regiment.
Major Heaphy was engaged in a skirmish with Maoris on the banks of the Mangapiko River, Auckland, when a wounded private tumbled into the midst of a party of natives concealed in a hollow. Without a moment’s hesitation the major leaped down after him. Though wounded himself, with a dozen shot-holes in his clothes and cap, he stuck by his man, and in time got him safely away.
REINING IN HIS HORSE, HE TURNED TO CATCH VOSPER’S … AND HELPED THE ORDERLY TO REMOUNT.—[Page 137.]
The story of Colonel McNeill’s rescue is the story of a ride for life which finds a close parallel in the deed for which Lord William Beresford gained the V.C. in Zululand, as will be told hereafter. The colonel was returning from Te Awamuta, whither he had been sent on special duty, with two orderlies, Privates Gibson and Vosper, both of the Colonial Defence Force, when a body of the enemy was descried some distance ahead. Despatching Gibson to the nearest camp (at Ohanpu) for assistance, he rode a little way up the road to the summit of a hill to reconnoitre.
As McNeill, with Vosper by his side, trotted on, unsuspecting any ambush, keen eyes watched them from the thick ferns that bordered the road, and presently some fifty Maoris sprang out to intercept them. The moment the natives appeared the two horsemen wheeled and galloped back down the hill. They got a flying start, but an unlucky step into a hole brought Vosper’s horse to his knees, sending his rider head over heels into the ferns.
Then the colonel did a plucky thing. Reining in his horse, he turned to catch Vosper’s, which was galloping in the opposite direction, and leading it back helped the orderly to remount. He was just in the nick of time. A few seconds later, and the Maoris would have been on them. As it was, only a mad gallop at top speed carried them clear out of range of the bullets that whistled round them.