CHAPTER VII

SOME MIRACULOUS ESCAPES I HAVE KNOWN

"There's a sweet little cherub who sits up aloft And looks after the life of poor Jack." DIBDIN.

By miraculous escapes I mean those escapes from death that have been entirely engineered by the Power above, who has preserved the life of human beings when they were utterly helpless, and who, for some inscrutable reason, saves one life and allows others to be destroyed.

The yarns I am now going to spin will illustrate, I think, what I have written above.

About midnight on 6th September 1868 a New Zealand Field Force, under the command of Colonel McDonnell, consisting of 200 white men and 70 friendly natives, left camp, crossed the deep, rapid and icy-cold River Waingongora, and started to attack Tetokowaru in his stronghold Te-ngutu-o-te-manu.

I am not going to inflict on you the miserable yarn of the unfortunate fight, as I have written it elsewhere; suffice it to say that the great majority of the 200 white men were untrained new chums, and that over 40 of them bolted at the first volley. The remainder stood their ground, although they refused to extend; so we lost one-third of our number, killed and wounded, in less than a quarter of an hour, and had to retreat, leaving our dead and many wounded men behind us.

So that you can understand the position of affairs, I may tell you that Colonel McDonnell, retaining the command of 100 of the white men, had sent the remaining 100 under Major Von Tempsky, to act on the right of his own party, and, as soon as he saw that nothing but a retreat could save the remainder of his force, he sent Captain McDonnell, his brother, to Von Tempsky with orders for the Major to retreat at once, and join up with his own party.

This order was delivered, but a few seconds later the Major was shot dead. Captain McDonnell then gave the order to Captain Buck, who promised to carry it out. Captain McDonnell returned to his brother, and the retreat began. Instead of immediately obeying the order, Captain Buck endeavoured to recover the Major's body, and was at once shot dead, without having passed the order on to anyone else. The next senior officer, Captain Roberts, took command of the party; but, as he was ignorant of the order to retreat, he still continued to hold his ground, until he was informed by some of his men that the Colonel had retreated. Joined by a few friendly natives, he retired by another route, and led the remains of his shattered and worn-out party into camp next morning.

Having given you a rough idea how things stood with our men on the afternoon of the 7th (please remember the date), I will now start the yarn.

It was late in the afternoon when Captain Roberts began his retreat, pursued by a party of Hau Haus. His men, nearly all new chums, behaved badly; but with a few good men, and the friendly natives who had joined him, he kept the enemy at bay till nightfall, when they drew off.

Now among his party he had a man named Dore, one of the Wellington Rangers, and a new chum.

This poor fellow had his arm, just below the shoulder, smashed to pieces by a bullet, fell, fainted from loss of blood, and was abandoned.

When he came to, he found himself stripped of everything, with the exception of his tattered and blood-stained shirt.

He must have been discovered by the pursuing Hau Haus, who had evidently thought him dead, but who, although they stripped him, forbore to tomahawk him or mutilate his body. This in itself was a marvel, and shows that that sweet little cherub must have taken his case in hand, as, with one other exception, the Hau Haus were never known to omit tomahawking and mutilating a dead body.

The poor chap hid in a hollow rata-tree, and when it was quite dark attempted to find his way back to camp. He, however, was a new chum, knew nothing of bush work, and consequently lost his way, wandering in a circle, and always returning to the vicinity of the blood-stained pah and ferocious Hau Haus. This he continued to do for three days; but on the evening of the 10th he managed to get out of the bush into the open country, and made for the camp. All this time he had been without a bite of food, with a severe raw wound, with only the fragment of a shirt to protect him against the icy-cold sleet and frost, and although all that time in the close vicinity of the Hau Hau pah, he miraculously escaped being spotted.

As I said before, on the evening of the 10th he found himself in the open country, and struck out for the drift across the flooded Waingongora River. He remembered reaching it, then lost recollection. How he crossed that drift, a very bad one even for a strong and healthy man to tackle alone, is more than a miracle; but he always asserted he was fired on while doing so, and fainted on reaching the bank.

Here he was only two miles from the camp; but his mind became a blank, for he wandered about till the evening of the 12th, when he was discovered by a patrol, coming out of a clump of bush, and he was brought into camp.

Now, just consider for a moment what this man Dore went through, and what awful dangers he escaped. Badly wounded and found by the most savage fanatics on the earth, yet, against their custom, they neither tomahawk nor mutilate him. Then he wanders for over five days, through bitter frost and cold, with an open and untended wound; he escapes the notice of the enemy, crosses, while weak from the loss of blood, starvation and pain, a most dangerous river, and yet, when brought into camp, his wound heals long before those of men who are not nearly so badly hurt, and who have not been through his awful experiences. You may call it luck. I maintain it was the work of that sweet little cherub, who, for his own reasons, "bossed up the whole show!"

In many of my yarns I have mentioned the massacre at Poverty Bay that was engineered by that arch-devil, Te Kooti, and his gang of fiends, called Hau Haus. On 10th July 1868 Te Kooti and some 200 Hau Haus landed at Whare-onga-onga, having escaped from the Chatham Islands. They had overpowered the guard there, seized the schooner _Rifleman_, forced the crew to sail them to Poverty Bay, and had landed some fifteen miles south of the white settlements. Owing to the criminal negligence of the Government, who, because they wished for peace, persuaded themselves they had got it, the defence force had been disbanded, and even the arms and ammunition removed from the adjacent districts, so that the settlers were almost helpless, while Te Kooti was soon joined by all the restless fanatics in the country.

Major Biggs, who was in charge of the Poverty Bay district, made head against Te Kooti, with whatever men and arms he could scrape together, but with small success. He was also guilty of an unpardonable piece of folly, as he allowed the settlers to remain on their scattered homesteads, and delayed collecting them together for mutual support, although warned to do so by friendly natives, who offered to assist in building defensive works. For this delay he paid dearly, as he and the whole of his family were surprised and, with the exception of one boy, brutally murdered. It was on the night of 9th November that Te Kooti made his raid on Poverty Bay. On that night Captain Wilson, second in command, was sitting in his house writing, when a party of Hau Haus, under a fiend called Nama, knocked at the door and informed him they had a letter for him from Hirini-Te-Kani, the head chief of the district. The Captain, however, had his suspicions, and told them to pass the letter under the door, at the same time arming himself and calling his servant Moran to come to his assistance. Moran slept in an outhouse; but he succeeded in breaking through the enemy, and joined his master. The Hau Haus, seeing they could not deceive the Captain, tried to force the door open with the trunk of a tree. The Captain at once opened fire on them, and forced them to drop it; so they then set fire to the house.

The white men fought on until the house was in full flare, when Captain Wilson accepted the Hau Hau offer of life for himself and family, provided he surrendered. It was a choice of that, or being all burned alive; and as there was a slight possibility of the Hau Haus keeping their promise, Captain Wilson surrendered.

Carrying a little boy in his arms, and followed by his wife and Moran, with the other children, three in number, if I remember rightly, they were surrounded by the Hau Haus, who led them towards the river. _En route_ he asked one of the natives where they were being taken to, and was at once shot, from behind, through the back.

Staggering to a bit of manuka scrub, the Captain threw the child into it, telling him to run, and in the confusion the youngster was not noticed and hid in the scrub. At the same moment Moran was tomahawked, and Mrs Wilson and the children were savagely treated, bayoneted and left for dead. The children were dead, but Mrs Wilson still lived.

Te Kooti and his gang remained in the settlement till the morning of the 14th--mark the date--plundering and murdering all the women and children who had escaped the night of the 9th, and whom his men found in hiding. On the afternoon of the 16th a small patrol from Tauranganui visited the blood-stained settlement and found little James Wilson hidden with a dog in his arms. The boy told them how he was trying to get to Tauranganui to bring help for his mother, who was lying wounded in an outhouse at their late home, but he had lost his way. As well as he could, poor child, he also described his miraculous escape.

He had hid in the scrub, but next day came back to the spot where his family had been murdered. Here he found the bodies of his father, his brothers, his sister and Moran, but not that of his mother.

He had then wandered back to his old home, hiding whenever he saw anyone, and there, in an outhouse, had found his mother lying dreadfully wounded.

The patrol went on to the house and found the poor lady in a dreadful state, but quite conscious. She told them that after the murder of her husband and children she had been most brutally ill-treated and then left for dead. When she came to herself she struggled back to what had been her home, and had taken refuge in an outhouse, where she had been found by her little son, who had kept her alive by scouting for hens' eggs or anything else he could find.

Now I call the escape of that child miraculous. For a helpless youngster to get away in the first place is wonderful; but that he should have been successful in evading the Maori search, of five days, for stragglers, and after finding his mother, to have been able to feed himself and her for seven days, with the food he scouted for, is a bit more than miraculous, and I put it down entirely to that sweet little cherub who sits up aloft.

Mrs Wilson and her son were removed to Tauranganui and afterwards to Napier. For nine days after she had been found it was hoped she might recover, but her injuries were too great, and she died shortly after she reached the latter place.

The above short and very incomplete yarn may give you some idea of the reason why we, members of the Lost Legion, so cheerfully underwent the great hardships we did to revenge the Poverty Bay massacre of November 1868.

FOLLY, PLUCK AND ENDURANCE

It is wonderful what a great number of good scouts and men have jeopardised and even lost their lives and the valuable information they have obtained, by a small act of folly, or by refusing to endure hardships for a few hours longer, when by doing so they might have won through safely and have brought to their O.C. the information he so badly wanted.

I have known men who, despite years of experience, have rushed out of their camp to tackle a lion with only the one cartridge that was in their rifle; and there are plenty of men who go prospecting or even big-game hunting and have their rifle and ammunition carried for them by a Kafir boy. Trouble comes, the boy bolts, and they are in a mess. Again, I have known men throw away ammunition and rations, rather than endure the fatigue of carrying them on the line of march, and how often has not a night's march or a premeditated attack on an enemy's position been spoilt by some man lighting his pipe or letting off his rifle that he has been told to carry unloaded?

The yarn I am going to spin you now will perhaps bear out what I have just written, and though the man who committed the folly extricated himself by a deed of heroism never surpassed and seldom equalled, yet the act of folly he and his mate perpetrated might have led to the loss of three lives, their own included.

It was in November 1865. The Hau Haus (fanatical and rebel Maoris) had received a severe defeat at the hands of the Colonial forces and friendly natives at Waerenga-a-Hika, which so broke them up that they were unable to face the music in that district (Poverty Bay) for a few years.

Over 400 of them had surrendered. Of these some 200 had been transported to the Chatham Islands, the remainder settling down peacefully for a long time. There were, however, still a large number of the most fanatical and bloodthirsty of the savages who, although unable to make a stand, yet roved about the country in small bands, seeking opportunity to destroy any white man or friendly native whom they might come across.

Now among the Defence Force, scattered at posts built for the protection of the settlers, was a big, raw-boned Irish sergeant named Walsh, who had heard very many extraordinary yarns about some petroleum springs at a place called Pakake-a-Whirikoka, situated some thirty miles from the post he was in charge of. I do not know what his reasons were; perhaps it was only curiosity, or perchance he had ideas of becoming an oil king. But as things looked quiet and peaceful, he determined to visit them, and persuaded an old settler and his son, named Espic, to guide him to the locality.

Well, they started early in the morning, the time being summer and the weather very hot, and after a long ride of nearly thirty miles reached the steep hill leading to the springs. Here they dismounted, and, because they had seen no signs of the enemy, decided to leave their horses in charge of the boy, while they went up the hill, on foot, to examine the springs.

This in itself was an act of folly; but they went one worse, for, the weather being hot, and meaning only to be absent a very short time, they left their carbines, coats and all their ammunition at the foot of the hill, rather than endure the slight trouble of carrying them, and started the ascent with only their revolvers.

Now they had been spotted by one of these bands of Hau Haus, who, as soon as they saw the two white men go up the hill, crawled up to the horses and captured them, with the arms and ammunition. The boy, however, although fired at, escaped and got away. The Hau Haus, thinking they had their prey secure, tied up the horses to a tree, and went up the hill after the white men, who, having heard the shots, were returning.

As soon as they met, the natives fired a volley, which broke Espic's arm and wounded Walsh on the forehead and hand. The white men returned the fire, and in the skirmish that followed Walsh was again wounded and, the white men's revolvers being now empty, the Hau Haus, nine in number, rushed them with the tomahawk, to finish them off.

In the hand-to-hand scrap that ensued Walsh was again twice wounded; but he still fought on, and a Hau Hau, determining to finish him, put his cut-down gun to Walsh's chest and fired.

Fortunately the bullet must have fallen out of the gun, as Walsh only sustained a bad burn on the chest. Springing in, he felled his assailant with a tremendous blow from the butt-end of his revolver. This was too much for Maori superstition. That a man whom they had badly wounded five times should be able to continue to put up a fight was bad enough; but that he should be able to floor their best man just after that best man had shot him through the chest was more than any decent Hau Hau could understand. Leaving the horses and the stricken man behind them, away they fled, only too anxious to put as great a distance as they could between themselves and the awful tohunga (magician), who refused to be killed. So much for folly and pluck. Now I will go on to endurance.

No sooner had the astonished and affrighted Hau Haus bolted than Walsh and his mate kicked their prisoner into convalescence and proceeded down the hill, where they found their horses tied to a tree, but the carbines, ammunition, and even saddles, taken away. Both men were badly wounded, Walsh in five places; but he would neither kill his prisoner nor let him go. Passing a rope round his neck, they made shift to mount their horses, bare-backed, and, forcing him to accompany them, they led him that long, hot ride of thirty miles, back to Tauranganui, where they arrived that night. Yes, faint though they were with the loss of blood, racked with the pain of untended wounds, without a round of ammunition, and hampered by an evil brute of a Hau Hau, who did everything in his power to retard their progress. Yet they would neither kill him nor let him go.

That I think is a yarn that illustrates folly, pluck and endurance.