"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (e novels to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Rolf Boldrewood
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Such was the corps in which Massinger and Warwick found themselves; for the latter had made up his mind—on Mr. Slyde's principle, that in the present [Pg 244] state of affairs "one must join something"—to follow the same flag as his erstwhile employer, to whom he had become personally attached. Of the young Englishman's courage and liberality he had the highest opinion; of his prudence he felt doubtful. This was his chief reason, as he told Mr. Slyde, for enlisting.
"I shouldn't like to see him shot or tomahawked," he said. "He'll make a grand soldier if he gets time; but he's careless—deuced careless—and foolhardy. I'm afraid of some dog of a Waikato taking a pot-shot at him from behind a tree while he's thinking of something a thousand miles away."
The Forest Rangers were a distinguished corps in which to be enrolled. From the beginning of the campaign their name had been in every one's mouth. Their dress was picturesque, though toned down in regard to the special services on which they were generally detailed.
More was expected of them by the public than of any other volunteer force. And the public was not often disappointed. Von Tempsky was the beau ideal of a leader of irregular troops. Full of military ardour, brave to recklessness, and of singular aptitude for command, the men under him got into the habit of regarding themselves as enfants perdus, knew not what fear was, and carried out with success sorties, reconnoissances, and scout duty of the most daring and desperate nature. The work was entirely to Massinger's taste. He found himself among kindred spirits. His former volunteer experience stood him in good stead. He was promised speedy promotion. He came to believe that a military career in war-time was, after all, his vocation, [Pg 245] and, as affording a succession of exciting adventures and dramatic incidents, the most desirable of all professions.
The minor successes gained by the Waitara tribes before November, 1860, had much elated the Ngatiawa, so that they conceived the idea of taking possession of the Mahoetai hill, close to the main road and near the Bell Block stockade. More than a hundred Ngatihauas and Waikatos established themselves there on a knoll surrounded by flax plants and raupo swamp. A combined attack of the 40th and 65th Regiments, with the militia, stormed the position. The volunteers and a company of the 65th were told off to the assault, which they made in good style. The Maoris stood their ground well, killing and wounding some of the assailants, but eventually were driven out of their rifle-pits. They took refuge in a swamp, but, the raupo being fired, fled for their lives. They lost thirty-four killed and fifty wounded. Several chiefs lay dead, including Taupo-rutu of Ngatihaua. Two were killed and four wounded of the volunteers.
After this affair two companies of the Forest Rangers were detailed, under Captains Von Tempsky and Jackson, for the purpose of scouring the forest between the Waikato and Auckland. Life and property in the settled districts had become insecure. To the great joy and satisfaction of Messrs. Slyde and Massinger, they found themselves in the first-named company, and were soon in the thick of a smart skirmish, in which two officers of a militia company were killed and half a dozen rank and file wounded, the enemy acknowledging more than double.
They were now ceaselessly occupied in scouring [Pg 246] the bush and moving from place to place, for weeks together having no settled camp or abiding-place. On the Waiari stream, when sent to clear the enemy out of the river-scrub, they killed five and took several prisoners in a very short onset.
A more serious engagement followed, when at Waiheke they were camped with the Arawa, two hundred strong, and found the enemy, composed of Ngaiterangi, Whaha-tohea, and Ngatiporou, awaiting them near Te Matata. The position was well chosen: a deep stream in front, on their left flank a raised beach, their right on the sea. The Forest Rangers carried the creek with a rush, well supported by the Arawa, after which the enemy waited no longer, but, pursued by the Rangers, fled until the Awa-te-Atua river was reached. The British loss was light, but included Toi, the brave old chief of the Arawa. The enemy lost seventy men.
Here Massinger had an opportunity of witnessing a characteristic incident of Maori warfare. A celebrated chief of the Whaha-tohea, being taken prisoner, fully expected to be put to death. Captain Macdonnell took him under his protection, telling him that he had nothing to fear. From the men probably not, but Macdonnell had not calculated on the feelings of a bereaved wife. Toi's widow, "wroth in wild despair," persuaded some one to load a rifle for her, and walking up to the chief, blew his brains out. The tribe, after much argument, came to a decision much resembling that of Bret Harte's jury at White Pine, viz. "Justifiable insanity."
"Must be in luck now," said Mr. Slyde one morning, after an orderly had been seen riding into [Pg 247] camp. "Shouldn't wonder if the general had got some special work cut out for us."
"I hope so," replied Massinger. "We'll know soon, as Warwick is talking to Captain St. George, whom Von is sure to give the first order to. Now both are called up. Something on by the look of Warwick. Here he comes."
"Well, where are we to go, most noble earl and king-maker? Route to the Uriwera or the Reinga?"
"There's an off chance of the last place for some of us," said Warwick, who didn't care for Maori jokes, detached, as by education and travel he had become, from his maternal relatives. "The route is to the Patea River near the edge of a forest, where the whole of the tribes of the North Island might hide. The villages there are not exactly in trees, but nearly as hard to climb up to."
"All the better—give us new ideas," said Slyde. "Tired of this flat country work.
What a country this would be for red deer! By the way, I wonder if I shall ever have the luck to pot a stag of ten? No saying; come some day. When do we start, and how many men?"
"Two companies, fifty each. Daylight in the morning. Camp at Kakaramea."
Stationed at this inviting locality, where, as Mr. Slyde remarked, the country consisted of hills without valleys, rivers without bridges, and inconvenient cliffs [Pg 248] thrown in, the hawk eyes of Warwick discovered a track leading up the face of an almost perpendicular cliff.
"This track goes up the cliff, but how are we to go up?" asked Massinger. "A goat couldn't do it."
"Do you see those climbers carelessly thrown along the track?"
"I do see some supple-jack here and there."
"Those," said Warwick, "are Maori ladders, which you will find strong enough when it is your turn to try them. Of the two, I would rather trust to them than ordinary rope."
"When do we start?" asked Massinger.
"Not today, or perhaps tomorrow. They have scouts on the watch. The major won't move until they get careless. Then a midnight affair."
"Regular 'Der Freischutz' business," said Slyde. "Hour midnight. Circle. Skulls neatly arranged. 'Zamiel, come forth!' etc. Owls in forest, please attend. Come to think, we are rather in the Freischutz line. If we get back to Auckland one of these fine days (or years), good idea for private theatricals."
"We shall have them in private and public," said Warwick, "before the season's over. Likely to end up with a tragedy, too."
"Tragedy or comedy, we shall be in the front row," said Massinger; "but, the overture not having commenced, we can't criticize the performance. Our jeun premier, Von Tempsky, however, would do honour to any opera in Europe. What a romantic-looking fellow he is in his undress uniform! Calm, yet determined-looking, an expression which would never alter in the face of death. Hair worn longer than we Englishmen [Pg 249] affect, but it becomes some people. As a fashion it's certain to come in again. Cavalry sabre, forage cap, blue tunic, boots to the knee,—there you have him. He would have been a Feld some day if he had remained in the Imperial service."
"Better that he is with us to-night," said Warwick. "Besides being a first-class leader, he is one of the smartest scouts that ever picked up a track. Did you ever hear what he did at Papa-rata? Many a man wears the Victoria Cross for less."
"No—that is, heard generally. Tell us about it," said Slyde. "Afraid I shouldn't do much in that line."
"Nor I either," said Massinger. "I am all ears."
"You'll never be all eyes, captain," said Warwick, with a grim smile. "And by Maori custom a captured scout is doomed to tortures that can't be told. I always keep one shot in my revolver."
"For whom?" asked Massinger.
"For myself, if ever I'm 'jumped,'" answered Warwick, who had acquired, among his other experiences, a few miner's idioms. "But here is the story. The general wanted a sketch of the enemy's works at Papa-rata, which they had occupied in force. Our Von undertook the service—sort of forlorn hope business—and, like everything he ever began, carried it out thoroughly. He managed to hide himself in the scrub and flax in the very midst of the natives, and, far worse for discovery, their prowling dogs, popularly supposed to wind a white man a mile off. There he calmly sketched the position, and got safe back into camp. They gave him his commission for it."
"And well he deserved it," said Massinger.
"So say I," chimed in Slyde. "Good thing [Pg 250] about a war, attracts best fellows of all nationalities—Johnnies that prefer discomfort and revel in danger; used to light marching order, too. Sort of war correspondent business; murder and sudden death thrown in. Deuced exhilarating when you come to think of it."
"Do you know, I find it so," answered Massinger, entering into the joke. "And our light marching order is a triumph of economy of space. Nothing approaches it but a middy's wardrobe, and he has a ship to carry it. I must have myself photographed when we—may I say if—we return to camp. Let me see—Forest Ranger, 'in his habit as he lived;' applicable to either case, you see. Item—Swag. Did I think I should ever carry one? One blanket, one great coat, twenty rounds of ammunition, all put up in a waterproof; three days' rations of meat and biscuit; half a bottle of rum. Revolver, carbine, cartridge-box, tomahawk—all most useful, not to say ornamental, when sliding down precipices in the dark, as we did on entering camp last night."
"Camp accommodation; don't forget that," added Slyde.
"Fire strictly forbidden. Sleeping apartment of the wild boar of the forest. I'll swear that where you and I, Warwick and Hay, slept last night—for we did sleep—under the hollow rimu tree, had belonged to one. 'Feeds the boar in the old frank,' as the wild prince says. Also, over and above all these pleasures and palaces, our lives hang on a chance from day to day—that of being surrounded in the heart of a forest, and cut off to a man."
"Conversation most improvin'," said Mr. Slyde. "Seems to lack the comic element, though! 'Want a [Pg 251] piano,' as the Johnnie said to Thackeray after lecture. As we've an early engagement—ha, ha!—in the morning, suppose we turn in? Now 'I lay me down to sleep.' Rain recommencing. 'Drought broken up,' as they say in Australia."
It was not very late—nine o'clock, indeed, no more. Camp evenings were apt to be long without late dinners or books. However, it not being their watch, the friends lay down in their "lair," and in five minutes, despite the rain, from which, indeed, the o'er-arching tree in great part saved them, fell fast asleep.
At midnight on the third day the march was recommenced and the cliff path reached. Von Tempsky, with seventy men, made a start punctually, as was his wont. Massinger felt doubtfully entertained at the idea of swinging in mid-air, clinging to a rude arrangement of trailers, with, perhaps, expectant Maoris at the top. However, he forbore remark, and after he had seen Von Tempsky shin up the swaying half-seen line like a man-of-war Jack, he felt reassured.
"What a leader he is!" thought he.
We are all in hard condition, luckily."
Between the precarious foothold on the cliff and the ladder of withes—Warwick, by the way, was immediately behind him—he reached the top safely.
"Here we are!" he said, as Warwick sprang up and stood by his side. "I shouldn't care, though, to go down the same way,
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