Phillpotts at Oheawai
He lies somewhat apart; but Captain Grant of the 58th is not far away, a ball in his heart, and Beattie, subaltern of the 99th, is dying. Two sergeants have fought their last fight, and thirty of rank and file—the brave unnamed—will never charge again. Macpherson, leader of this forlornest of forlorn hopes, is grievously wounded; so are Ensign O'Reilly and Interpreter Clarke. Three sergeants and seventy-five of the rank and file are down. Not ten minutes at it, and three-fourths of the one hundred and sixty who started have fallen, dead or wounded; and of them all not one has passed that cruel fence. Will that bugle never blow?
Ah! At last—"Retire!" The man watching from the hill, the man who commands, realises now that he has demanded the impossible, has set his men to take an impregnable fortress. And again, as if imploring them to obey, the bugle wails—"Retire!"
The assault by escalade upon Oheawai is over, and the Maori has once again repulsed the Briton.
But whose is the fault?
FOOTNOTES:
[60] His father's name.
[61] Some of which required thirty men to raise them by means of ropes.