Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion Part 10

The following day it was determined to send scouts out to find where the enemy had retreated to.

We had followed Te Kooti since July 1868, when he had escaped with 160 fighting men from Chatham Islands, had landed at Whare-onga-onga, close to Poverty Bay, and had gathered all the disaffected Maoris in the country to him. He had sacked Poverty Bay, murdering about ninety helpless settlers. He had fought us twice at Makaretu and innumerable other places, had captured a convoy of ammunition, had fortified himself at Ngatapa, where he had repulsed, with heavy loss, two a.s.saults and had only evacuated the pah when starved out for want of food and water. And although we had, in the pursuit, captured and killed 136 of his men, yet he himself escaped and reached the fastnesses of the Uriwera country.

In April 1869 he had swooped down on the Mohaka settlement and had murdered in cold blood seventy whites and friendly natives, and then retreated to Taupo country with us at his heels.

In fact he had kept us lively for a year, and was going to prevent us getting rusty for two more, until, having lost nearly all his men, he retired into the King country, where we could not follow him; and he lived there quietly for twenty years, and at last died in the odour of sanct.i.ty, highly respected by all who knew him. For nearly four years we were on his track: his escapes were numerous and miraculous, we destroyed band after band of the desperate savages who joined him, but although he was wounded twice we never got him.

Bad luck to it, I'm off the spoor. To get back.

It was determined to send out scouts to locate Te Kooti, and I was chosen with two men to do the job. It was a big contract to handle.

One glance at the map will show you Lake Taupo. We were at the north-east corner, about ten miles from the semi-friendly pah at Tapuacharuru (Sounding Footsteps), our base was at Opotiki, eighty miles away, on the Bay of Plenty coast. There were at that time no roads, no bridle-tracks, no paths; no game existed in New Zealand, and there was no food to be procured for man, and but little for horses.

No white man, with the exception, perhaps, of a stray missionary, had ever penetrated to that part of the country, which was composed of dense bush, mountains and broken ground covered with manuka scrub, or long fern, which grew from six to ten feet high, and it was in the depth of winter, bitterly cold and wet. The enemy had retreated in the direction of the great volcanoes Ruapehu and Tongeriro, at the south-east end of the lake, about thirty-five miles from where we were camped, and in an awful country, quite unknown and hostile to us. This country had to be searched, Te Kooti found and attacked before he established himself in another stronghold and recruited his murderous band of bloodthirsty savages. The columns could not advance and look for him; they had no food to feed man or horse during the time it would take to find him. No, they must fall back nearer the base, and the scouts must find him, and then the troops and horses, well fed, could make a rush for him and perhaps put an end to his career. My orders were that I was to find Te Kooti and return to Opepe, the Colonel promising he and the column would meet me there on the sixteenth day, when I was to guide him up to the quarry.

How I was to find the bounder, and how we were to live while we were looking for him, was left to me. It was certain that Te Kooti would be looking out for anyone who might be impudent enough to look for him, and if he caught us our fate was certain, though, of course, we could only guess at the nature of the torture to which we should be subjected. Even if we were lucky enough to be able to blow our own brains out before we were captured, the Colonel would lose the information he required, and more men would have to be sent; so that it behoved us to keep ourselves and our tracks hidden, and to see without being seen.

How we were to live I left to Providence; it was beyond me. We were all hardened bushfighters, and we must take our chance.

My two companions were queer characters; both of them had been sailors: one of them, Pierre De Feugeron, a Frenchman, the other a Kantuarius Greek. They had been mates for years, were both splendid scouts, expert bushmen, good shots, and utterly fearless. Well, no sooner had I got my orders than we started. Our field kit consisted of smasher hats, dark blue serge jumpers that reached to the knee, but during the day were drawn up and fastened round the waist; we wore no trousers, but had shawls round us like kilts. I wore shooting boots and socks; the others went barefooted with sandals. Our arms consisted of carbines and revolvers, and we each wore in our belts a tomahawk and sheath knife. On our backs we carried a blanket rolled up, in which was some very bad bacon and worse biscuit, four pounds of each; and with this we were to penetrate thirty-five miles or more into an unknown country, as rough as any in the world, find a wily enemy and, above all, get back with our information.

It may not seem much to the man who has never been out of Britain, but a Colonial will appreciate the job at its true value.

We left the camp from the north side, and made a wide detour to the north-east, before we struck to the south-west, to touch the lake. The enemy had retreated almost due south, through a number of rough pumice-stone gullies, and it was more than likely that a sly old bird like Te Kooti would leave an ambush on his spoor to cut off any scouts that might be sent after him, or, in case a strong party followed him, to give him news of their movements. I did not want to fall into that ambush. I had been in a few before, and did not like them; and so went round to try and cut his spoor a good way south of where we had abandoned it on the previous day.

All that day we tramped across deep gullies and through manuka scrub, very often having to head off our road to examine the ground on either side of us, and to take bearings to our rear as well as to our front.

A good scout should always do this, as he may have to return a sight faster than he went; and he must remember which way he came; he has no time to think much when a war party is after him.

Well, as night fell we came to a range of mountains covered with bush, and I reckoned that, with our detour, we had made quite ten miles to the south of Opepe, and were well on our way. It had rained all day, except when it sleeted, and of course we were wet through, yet we dare not light a fire. For all we knew we might have been spotted and followed; so we entered the bush, and as soon as it was quite dark moved carefully a mile away and, eating a small handful of biscuits, wrapped ourselves in our shawls and blankets and slept as well as we could.

It froze hard that night and the cold was intense; in the morning we were up as soon as a glimmer of day came, and started to cross the range of mountains. The bush was a regular New Zealand one, composed of trees of gigantic size, and with a dense undergrowth that nothing but a pig or an elephant could get through. We therefore had to take to the bed of a creek and follow it up to the ridge. The water was icy cold, and the cold drip from the trees and bushes wet us through, although it did not rain. With nothing but a few bits of flint-like biscuit to chew, up we went, and came to the top of the range, and there we rested and got a view of the country.

To our west was the lake, and to the south was the cone of Tongeriro and the three peaks of Ruapehu; between us and them was range after range of hills, below us lay a deep valley, and, tough as we were, I almost feared the job was too tough for us. To despond is one of the last things a scout should do; so after more biscuit off we went again, and, striking another creek, we descended the bed of it till we came to the river that ran through the valley and entered the lake at the foot of it. I determined to descend the bed of this river, as I thought I might cut Te Kooti's spoor on the beach of the lake, which I determined to examine next morning. I feared to do so that evening, as they might have ambushed the drift, and there was also the dread of the ambuscade he most likely had left behind to watch our camp.

This party, after they had watched the column move away, would most likely, provided they had not seen us, be on the march to catch up Te Kooti.

We therefore hid on a fern ridge with the drift in view of us, and fortunate it was for us we did so.

We had not been there long when we saw coming from the north, along the beach, a party of twelve natives; and I felt much relieved, for I knew at once that they had not seen us, or they would have been after us, and that I had been quite right to make the detour I had done.

They marched quite carelessly, evidently thinking no white man was nearer them than the retreating column, and when they had crossed the drift lit a big fire, cooked food and warmed themselves; then, leaving the fire burning, started at a rapid pace for the south.

We watched them round a far cape of the lake, then down we went to their fire and warmed ourselves and cooked a bit of bacon. Thankful we were for the warmth and food; but we dare not stay long.

I wanted to get the benefit of the open beach, and also to spot their camp fire that night; so, as soon as our frozen limbs were thawed and our food swallowed, we were off, hiding our spoor as well as we could.

That night we saw their camp, and envied them as we lay hid in the fern s.h.i.+vering with cold; for again we had a hard frost, and our clothes were far from dry; but a scout must put up with cold, heat, hunger, thirst, and be ready to face, smiling, anything that falls to his lot.

The earlier in life he hardens himself to do without rotten sweetstuff the better, and always remember that cigarettes are the invention of the evil one.

Well, day after day this sort of life went on. If I were to try to describe our adventures day by day they would fill a book; let it suffice that for ten days we lurked through tangled and dripping bush, waded up the bed of mountain torrents, crossed snowclad ranges, and struggled through matted fern, soaked with rain and sleet during the day, and frozen stiff during the bitter nights. Our miserable rations were gone. Sometimes we found a rotten matti-tree, and from it extracted the white grubs, which we ate thankfully. Once we found some potatoes.

At last we discovered Te Kooti, and where he was building his new pah.

For one night I prowled round it, and long before morning we were on our way back. For the first two days the same care had to be taken to hide our spoor; it would never do to be caught or killed after all our troubles and sufferings.

On the third day I moved down to the lake.

We were starving: not just hungry, but absolutely starving. As the evening was coming on, in a small bay I saw the smoke of a fire; that meant Maoris camping. They had food of some sort, and we decided to have it.

The bay was an inlet, into which a small creek emptied itself, between two low ridges of fern. A short detour led us to the bed of the creek, down which we descended as quietly as otters, while the noise of the stream drowned any slight noise we might make in wading down it. The creek ran into a small clump of tree ferns, and we crept on till we came to where the party was encamped at the mouth of the creek.

There were four fine-looking big Maoris. Their canoe was drawn up on the bank of the creek with the paddles leaning against it. Had there been more than four paddles it would have meant that some of the party were absent; but now we knew we had only the four in front to tackle.

We dare not use our fire-arms on account of the report. No, the job must be done with tomahawk and knife. We were within twenty feet of them.

A glance at my companions and we laid down our carbines, slipped off our blankets and drew our tomahawks and knives.

One more look. The four Maoris were sitting by their fire, unconscious of our presence. A nod to my mates and we sprang at them. Whiz, whiz went my men's knives--they were both past masters at the art of knife-throwing--and over went two Maoris with the knives buried up to the hafts in their bodies.

I rushed my man, but, surprised as he was, he was a splendid, tough old warrior, and jumped at me, his tomahawk swinging loosely in the air above his head.

I had practised hard with the tomahawk for the last two years, but I knew I was no match for the old man. I therefore determined to rush in on him, guard his first blow and use my left fist. (I was very strong in those days, and a good boxer.) Throwing up my tomahawk, I guarded a smas.h.i.+ng cut at the left of my neck, and although I felt the keen edge of the blade cut my flesh on the left shoulder, the impetus of my charge carried me in, and las.h.i.+ng out with my left I struck him full on the throat. Down he went, astonished by this novel mode of attack, and in another moment the head of my tomahawk was buried up to the eye in his brains.

When I looked round the fight was over, the only unwounded Maori falling an easy prey to the combined attack of my two desperadoes.

Pierre, a splendid cook, was already looking into the pot that was on the fire, and, declaring the contents to be good pork, not long pig, we were soon enjoying it. To get rid of the bodies did not take long.

The marks of the struggle were obliterated, and we were off. Two days more and we reached Opepe; and, true to his word, my colonel met us with a strong patrol. We were thin, footsore, our legs torn, our kit in rags; but what mattered that? We had done our duty and had got back with valuable information, and as we swallowed some hot tea we did not care for the past--it was past. My wound was nothing--Pierre had st.i.tched it up--and as I once more donned my breeches and boots, a clean s.h.i.+rt, and threw my leg over my dear old horse, I was as happy as the day was wet.

CHAPTER XI

THE COLONEL'S FIERY TOT

(_Told by the old Kai Tongata_)

During the east coast war the division in which I was serving landed on the beach to seize a "pah," or native stronghold, two days' march inland. As usual we carried four days' rations, including rum. We were led by a fine old colonel, a distinguished Crimean officer, who was much liked by the men. He was one of the old "two-bottle men"--or, rather, he was contented with two bottles when he could not get three.

At that time I had not acquired a liking for ration rum--raw, fiery stuff--but by the end of the second day's march the colonel had consumed his own allowance and mine too. At daylight on the third day, when we had fallen in beside a creek, and were preparing to attack, he said to me: "Give me a tot" (calling me by a nickname I acquired early and retained throughout my active career).

"I haven't any rum, sir; you finished mine last night."

He bubbled like a furious turkey-c.o.c.k, and swore I'd drunk more than my share. As I had not tasted a drop, I thought this unfair, but wisely said nothing. It is bad policy to argue with a liverish colonel, when he is two days' march from the nearest drink.

Then he said: "I must have a tot. I wonder whether the men have any left." I was just promising to inquire when he exclaimed excitedly: "Look there!" And lo and behold, a man stepped out of the ranks, then standing easy, and took from his haversack a bottle containing something that looked like rum. He poured some into a pannikin, poured in some water and drank it off. "By heavens," said the old colonel, "I've struck oil." Just then I called the men to "attention," and as we went down the ranks inspecting the colonel kept saying: "Deuced bad pain in my stomach."