A SCOUTING ADVENTURE
The passage of the Okehu--A night's vigil--Mackenzie the
scout--"Maoris in the bush!"--The watchers in the fern--A race for
life.
A clear, bright, moonlight night of summer; a moon that silvered the
sharp hill-tops of the broken Maori country, but left black mysterious
shadows in the gorges and river valleys that every few miles cut deeply
into the rolling fern lands; valleys full of danger and death, for in
their depths crept the war-parties of the savage, laying ambushes,
planning murder and mutilation. On a gently sloping rise on the open
fern lands a hundred white tents, the camp of the _pakeha_ troops,
glittered in the full moonlight. The sweet bugle-calls of "Lights out"
and the "Last post" rang out for miles across the wilderness, and
except for the piquets and sentries the camp was soon asleep. But away
on the forest edge, a mile from the safely entrenched camp, a little
band of men, half a dozen scouts, crouched hiding in the fern, carbines
in their hands, watching, listening. They were the eyes of the army.
Their wits, their keenness of vision and hearing, were pitted this
night against the savage men of the forest, born bushmen, with the
cunning of the Indian.
It was the 17th of January, 1869, nearly three months after the
repulse of the Colonial troops at the Moturoa stockade. All this time
Titokowaru and his victorious _Tekau-ma-rua_ had everything their own
way on the West Coast, scouring the country-side, burning settlers'
houses, killing cattle, and strengthening their palisaded position at
Tauranga-ika. The East Coast campaign following on the Poverty Bay
massacre had necessitated the diversion of nearly all the Constabulary
from the West Coast, until the storming and capture of Te Kooti's
hill-fort Ngatapa and the flight of the rebel chief to the forests of
the Urewera Country enabled attention to be again given to the Taranaki
and Waitotara Hauhaus. Now, well on in the month of January, 1869,
Colonel Whitmore, with Colonel Lyon--a brave one-armed soldier, veteran
of the Crimea--as his second in command, advanced from Wanganui with
a strong force of Armed Constabulary, about eight hundred in number,
besides a large body of _Kupapas_, or friendly Maoris, mostly of the
Whanganui tribe, under Kepa te Rangihiwinui. The force encamped at the
end of the first day's march near the right bank of the Kai-iwi stream,
about ten miles from Wanganui, and prepared to march the next day
through the Okehu Gorge and on to Nukumaru and Tauranga-ika.
This country around the Kai-iwi was mostly open fern land, but some of
the river gullies were filled with a dense growth of forest. A short
distance to the north of the camp there was a deep gorge, the valley
of the Okehu stream. Through this gorge a road had been cut some years
before, and the river had been bridged, giving access to Nukumaru
and the Waitotara, and this was the route by which Colonel Whitmore
intended to approach the Hauhau stronghold. It was, however, plainly
a dangerous place, where the Maoris might easily lay an ambush. The
little colonel was too old a soldier to run risks of this sort, and
he determined to have the gorge carefully scouted before he took his
column into it.
That afternoon he selected half a dozen of his most active men, some
of them Constabulary, some volunteers, and as soon as night fell
despatched them to the Okehu, with orders to spend the night on the
fern-covered right bank of the gorge, and find out if the Maoris
were laying an ambuscade in the bush below. Trooper William Lingard,
of Bryce's Kai-iwi Cavalry--the young trooper who had distinguished
himself at the Tauranga-ika skirmish described in the last chapter--was
placed in charge of the scouts. With him were Chris. Maling, a young
surveyor--his father had been killed by the Maoris years before,
and he often declared that he would never rest until he had killed
a Maori with his own hands in revenge; a Frenchman called Peter the
Guide; three men named Herri, Powell, and Williamson; and an old Indian
soldier named Mackenzie. It is with this Mackenzie that this story of a
night's scouting expedition is chiefly concerned.
It was the calmest of nights, a still night when sounds travelled far,
and in silence the little squad of armed scouts set out from the tented
camp in single file towards the dark gorge of the Okehu. They marched
as silently as Indians, for they were shod exactly like Indians, in
moccasins that felt the ground as soundlessly as a wild cat's pad.
The making and wearing of those moccasins was Mackenzie's idea. This
veteran soldier was a man who had been brought out from India by Sir
Henry Cracroft Wilson, when that gentleman settled in Canterbury. He
was, as one of his scouting comrades says, a fine-looking, resolute
man, something over forty years of age, with hair beginning to turn
grizzly, and a bold, fearless eye. He was partly of Gurkha blood, and
his senses were wonderfully keen. He had marvellous escapes from death,
and had even been partly scalped. Once when he was overpowered and
felled in a mêlée, a savage had passed his knife around his head and
underneath the scalp, and was about to "lift his hair" when a timely
bullet from one of Mackenzie's comrades knocked his assailant over, and
the soldier was rescued. His companion ran to his aid, pressed down the
torn scalp into its place, and bound it firmly with bandages. Mackenzie
saved his hair, but to his last day bore the scar of the scalping-knife
running round his head. He carried besides his carbine a remarkable
weapon, a two-ended steel knife, or dagger, of Afghan make, which he
wore in a sheath at his back with a flap of skin over the top. One end
of the dagger was a stiletto and the other was a double-edged cutting
and thrusting blade, ground as sharp as a razor. It had the handle in
the middle. With this knife he would perform some wonderfully dexterous
feats. He would throw it up into the air thirty or forty feet and catch
it by the middle as cleverly as a juggler as it came whizzing down. He
would stick a piece of paper on a post and, retiring twenty or thirty
yards, hurl the shining weapon at it and transfix the target in the
exact centre, the knife quivering several inches deep in the post.
The moccasins the scouts wore were made by Mackenzie from the skin of
a horse. Immediately the party had been organised the old soldier went
out with his carbine and shot one of the numerous ownerless horses that
roamed the hills. Cutting out suitable pieces of the skin, he fitted
them while still warm to his comrades' feet, with the hair inside;
then cut thongs and laced the horse-skin shoe firmly to the foot. In
a few hours these moccasins took perfect shape, and made the most
suitable foot-gear for bush-work that could have been devised. "If we
wear ordinary boots out scouting we're sure to lose our lives," said
Mackenzie; "we can't scout noiselessly in them, or run fast enough when
it comes to running."
An old Maori war-track wound through the high fern above the Okehu
Gorge. Along this the scouts marched to take up their night's vigil.
Two were posted at the end of the gorge nearest the camp, two more
about two hundred yards away, and the third couple about the same
distance farther on, above the middle of the gorge. The men made
themselves nests in the fern alongside the track, and close to the edge
of the slope that fell to the impenetrable blackness of the bush below.
The leader, as he posted the men, told them to keep a sharp watch and
listen for any sounds, and to give a signal if any of them heard Maoris
in the gorge. The signal was to be the thrice-repeated sharp cry of the
_weka_, the night-roving wingless bird that haunted these forests and
gulches.
After posting his comrades in their several positions, young Lingard
rejoined his companion Maling in a little nook in the thick fern just
on the gorge side of the narrow foot-track, and stayed a while with him
conversing in whispers. In half an hour's time he cautiously patrolled
the track again to visit the others. When he came to Mackenzie, the old
soldier was sitting up reading a pocket Bible by the bright moonlight.
"What are you reading?" asked Lingard, as he squatted down quietly in
the fern by Mackenzie's side.
"Look and see," said the soldier, and Lingard saw, and wondered, for
not many a rough old soldier like Mackenzie was seen with such a book.
And he wondered still more when Mackenzie, closing the book, asked him
to look at it again. There was a clean-cut hole in it, right through
one of the covers and penetrating many of the leaves.
"That book saved my life," said the veteran. And he told the story. It
was the comrade who had bowled over the Indian who was about to scalp
him that gave Mackenzie the little Bible. "'You say you will always be
grateful to me for saving your life,' he said. 'Well, I want you to do
just one thing for me; it's a little thing. I won't ask much.'
"He was so insistent," said Mackenzie, "that I gave him the promise he
asked. 'Well,' said my friend, 'just take this little book of mine and
read something in it every night; or, if you won't read it, take it out
and look at it and open it. And always carry it with you. It will save
your life.'
"I did so, and I read it, more to please my old friend than anything
else. I carried it in my jumper pocket, for it was small and light. And
in those dangerous days I carried something else night and day--this
dagger that I wear at my belt. About midnight one night I was lying
alone in my tent, half-asleep, when I heard something--no, smelt it! It
was pitch dark, but I knew there was something or some one close to me.
As quietly as I knew how, I loosened my dagger and gripped it firmly.
The next moment I felt a terrible thud on the chest, and a figure
hurled itself on me. I brought round the knife with a swift sweep, and
nearly ripped the side out of the fellow--killed him dead. It was a
native who wanted to kill and rob me. He had jumped at me with a knife,
but the point of his blade struck the Bible in my breast pocket as I
lay on my back, and that saved my life. See! It's the sort of thing you
used to read about in little Sunday-school books, isn't it? I wonder
how many people would believe it? But it's absolutely true. That old
comrade of mine saved my life twice. And it's these two I put my trust
in, my Bible and my dagger. That knife's the best weapon I've ever had.
It's more to me than carbine or revolver."
Then Mackenzie put his hand on his fellow-scout's arm, and spoke in an
earnest whisper of a presentiment that filled his mind.
"I feel," he said, looking straight into his friend's eyes, "that this
is my last night on earth. I have a conviction that I won't see another
sun rise."
"Nonsense!" said young Lingard, beginning to feel creepy. "Don't talk
like that, old man; you'll unnerve me. You're not going to die."
"Why should I unnerve you, my boy?" asked Mackenzie very quietly and
gently. "There's nothing to be afraid of in dying. I can face death
with perfect calmness; and I know I'm to die very soon."
There was silence for some moments. Suddenly Mackenzie started, turned
in a listening attitude, and put up a hand in warning.
"Don't you hear them?" he whispered. "Don't you hear them? There are
Maoris moving in the bush below. I heard the pat of a naked foot just
now and the breaking of a twig."
The young leader of the scouts listened with utmost intentness for
the next few minutes. The two comrades could hear each other's hearts
thumping, so still they crouched. But not another sound came except the
occasional call of the melancholy morepork.
After a little while Lingard bade Mackenzie good-bye for the time, and,
with his carbine at the "ready," crept back along the track and visited
the other men. Joining Maling, he told him of his strange conversation
with Mackenzie.
"He's a real good fellow," said Maling, "a good comrade. I hope that
presentiment of his is all bunkum. But if he says there are Maoris
moving in the bush, we'll have work before morning."
In half an hour's time Lingard went the rounds again, stopping every
now and then to listen for sounds of the enemy. He found Mackenzie
still reading, bare-headed, by the clear moonlight in his little nook
in the fern. Mackenzie's mate was sound asleep.
The old soldier's senses were wonderfully acute. Quietly as Lingard
stole up on his moccasined feet, he had heard him. He was listening
while he read.
"Lingard," he said, "I've been reading for the last time. I know it's
my last night of life. To-day I was so sure of this that I settled my
account at the canteen, and paid my last instalment on a horse I bought
from John Handley, and I've written to my wife. I won't see to-morrow's
sun rise. This came to me yesterday morning.
"Lingard," he went on again, in a whisper, "there are Maoris about!
Can't you smell them? They're in the bush below, waiting. But you'll
stay, I suppose, till daylight, unless something happens before then."
In a few minutes Lingard, after vainly listening for sounds in the
bush, cautiously rose and walked back along the track. He left
Mackenzie sitting there, with the moonlight streaming down on his
earnest face, still reading his little book. Returning to Maling,
Lingard sat with his companion listening, until it was within perhaps
half an hour of full daylight.
Then, all at once, they heard a fearful sound. A rifle shot, followed
instantly by a terrific yell, the war-yell of the Maoris from the
bush behind them. The bush flashed fire, the flashes of many guns,
accompanied by reverberating bangs; then the pattering and thudding of
many naked feet along the track.
The ambuscade had been unmasked. One of the scouts--so it was learned
afterwards--had cautiously worked his way down the valley, far enough
down to see that the bridge over the Okehu had been set on fire, and
by its light he saw a large party of armed Hauhaus. He hurried back to
give his comrades warning, but before he could reach them some of the
prowling natives discovered Mackenzie and Williamson and fired on them,
wounding Williamson in the back when he started to run.
The scouts had done their work, but would they ever reach the camp
alive?
The whole of the war-party were on the white men's heels, racing
through the fern and along the narrow track and firing as they ran. The
moon had gone down, and it was too dim to see very far, but the dawn
was spreading over the eastern sky.
"They're on us!--they're on us!" exclaimed Maling. "It's no use to run
now; we wouldn't have a show. Let's hide here in the fern."
The scouts were crouching in the fern within a yard or so of the Maori
track. The fern was very high here, over a tall man's head in height,
and was very thick and matted, and lying in a slanting direction. The
two men, knowing that it was certain death to venture out, for the
Maoris were rushing along the track in force, crept underneath the
thick masses of ferns, and pushed it up over them so that they had
room to move and were perfectly screened from the enemy's eyes in that
early morning light. They made ready their Terry carbines, bit their
cartridges ready for reloading, and put their percussion-caps in their
mouths for instant use. Just before they did so, Maling turned to his
companion and said:
"Lingard, old man, promise me if it comes to the worst you won't leave
me, and I'll do the same by you. Don't let us leave each other," and he
put out his hand.
The young leader of the scouts gripped Maling's hand. "We'll stick by
each other," he said.
The next moment there was a thundering rush of feet past the very
muzzles of their carbines. A mob of Hauhaus, yelling and shouting,
raced past them, following up the leaders who had been fired on by the
scout, and who had come dashing after the white men.
The two hidden scouts could hear nothing of their comrades, but they
well knew the odds were greatly against any of them reaching the camp.
Presently they heard firing from the direction of the camp. The troops
had turned out on hearing the shots at the bush edge, and were covering
the retreat of the scouts.
Then another thing happened. Maling and his companion heard and felt
something now and then swishing and cutting through the fern just above
their heads. They were under the fire of their own comrades.
"Maling," said Lingard, "this is getting too warm! It's not good enough
to stay here and be shot by our own men. Let's make a run for it."
Creeping out from their place of concealment, and giving a quick look
backwards to make sure that no more Hauhaus were coming, the two scouts
ran along the track in the direction of the camp. Close by on their
left they could hear the enemy yelling and firing.
Just as they turned a bend in the path they came upon a terrible sight.
Mackenzie lay on the ground, face downwards; his head smashed in and
his brains spattering the ground. His carbine and ammunition and Afghan
sheath-dagger were gone.
This they saw at one horrified glance, then they dashed on, taking a
short cut across the fern to the camp. They could see the white tents
now in the morning light. They ran towards the troops shouting, "Don't
fire!--don't fire!"
The two scouts reached camp safely, and Lingard immediately reported
the result of the night's work to the colonel. All the others excepting
poor Mackenzie turned up. One of them had fallen shot, wounded in the
back, close to the camp, but was rescued by the surgeon, Dr. Walker,
who pluckily ran out and carried him in.
Mackenzie, one of the survivors said, was running well, and would have
escaped, but he suddenly fell prone on his face without any apparent
cause. A Hauhau came running along next moment, and, putting his gun
close to Mackenzie's head, blew his brains out.
Then came another strange development of the morning's adventure.
Surgeon Walker, on examining Mackenzie's body, said he believed the
scout had died suddenly of heart disease, and that he was quite dead
before even the Hauhau shot him.
The brave old Gurkha soldier's presentiment of speedy death was only
too true a foreword from the Unknown.
It was fortunate that this Hauhau ambuscade had been unmasked. The
camp was already astir, and the troops were having their early morning
coffee, and in another half-hour would have begun the march by the
Okehu Gorge route, when the first shots were fired. Once down in the
narrow gorge and the presence of the enemy undetected, they would have
been practically at the mercy of their active and well-concealed foes
in the thick bush above and on either side of them.
After this little morning skirmish the Hauhaus, numbering probably a
hundred and fifty, quickly retired through the bush to the Tauranga-ika
_pa_, taking with them as trophies the dead soldier's arms. The white
troops were soon on the move. Four divisions of Armed Constabulary,
the Volunteer Cavalry, and the _Kupapa_ Maoris marched through the
Gorge unmolested, and took up a position near the great Hauhau _pa_,
which Whitmore now prepared to storm. First he tried artillery in
an endeavour to breach the stockade, and Kimble Bent and his Maori
comrades in the crowded fort now stood target for cannon-fire.