"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (100 best novels of all time TXT) ๐
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- Author: Rolf Boldrewood
Read book online ยซ"War to the Knife;" or, Tangata Maori by Rolf Boldrewood (100 best novels of all time TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Rolf Boldrewood
[Pg 252]
"They would find an officer and thirty men there," said Warwick. "Our Von always takes care to leave a place open for retreat. Catch him napping!"
Dawn found them in a deserted village, recently occupied, however, as the fires were still alight. Pushing on across a gorge, smoke was seen rising, and on the summit of the ridge a large clearing was sighted, with a number of whares at the other end.
"There they are!" said Massinger.
"Those whares are only temporary," explained Warwickโ"used by the natives to put in a crop or take it up. I can see Maoris; they don't see us, however."
The order came at that moment to extend in line along the forest edge, behind a barricade of dead timber, thrown aside from the clearing. This they climbed, but were immediately seen by the natives, who fired a volley, mortally wounding a young officer and one of the Rangers. The senior officer, next to Von Tempsky, was also hit. The attempt to dislodge the enemy from some fallen timber, under cover of which they were able to hold the attacking force in check, failed, owing to their right resting on a cliff, not previously noticed. A smart skirmish took place, however, in which the enemy was routed, leaving three dead on the ground.
"Had the best of it," said Mr. Slyde after supper. "Not a glorious victory, though, by any means. Two to oneโbad exchange against natives. Poor young Stansfield, too! Took me and Warwick all we knew to get him down that beastly ladder."
"Poor chap!" said Massinger. "What spirits he was in when we started! Stark and cold now. Fortune of war, I suppose."
[Pg 253]
"Bush-fighting not all beer and skittles," remarked his companion. "Better luck next time."
One of the really "stunning engagements" (as Mr. Slyde phrased it) in which Massinger and his two comrades took active part, was the fight before Paterangi. The enemy's works were about three miles distant from the headquarters' camp at Te Rore.
The sailors, under Lieutenant Hill, H.M.S. Cura๏ฟฝoa, had their camp close to the landing-place, to which the Avon, with stores, made daily trips.
The tars, to relieve the monotony of camp life, had got hold of cricketing materials, and on fine afternoons the stumps were set up and play carried on, secundum artem, as unconcernedly as if there was no such thing as a Maori foe within a few hundred yards of them.
"Look at Von Tempsky!" said Slyde (the Rangers being at headquarters in case any specially dangerous scouting was on hand.) "Cool as if he was listening to a military band in Berlin. Trifle better music there, I dare say. Picturesque-looking beggar, isn't he? Cigar in mouth, forage cap always on the side of his head. Curls ๏ฟฝ ravir. Not our form, but they become him. Wouldn't think he was the man that spoilt an ambush at Mount Egmont, when the general made his point to point march through the bush there."
"Just the man, I should think. But how was it?"
"Rangers, you see, marched with the column. Passing through thickest spot, Von left track with his men and vanished. Troops thought took wrong path. Sharp firing heard. Von reappears front of the column, forcing his way through the supple-jacks, [Pg 254] sword in one hand, revolver in the other, knife between his teeth, dripping with blood. Ambush laid for troopsโdestroyed it."
"No wonder everybody swears by him. I suppose these fellows would have had a steady volley at the column?"
"Regular pot-shot. Sure to kill officers, besides twenty or thirty Tommies. Might even have bagged the general. Great hand at the bowie-knife, Von. Learned that in Mexico. Throws it to an inch. Great weapon at close quarters."
"I dare say," replied Massinger. "I don't seem to take to it myself. All's fair in war, of course."
"Suppose we have a bathe in the Mangopiko? It feels warmer this afternoon."
This motion being carried, our triumvirate proceeded to the river-bank with a party of the 40th, men who bathed there every day.
"The water's all right," said Warwick, "but I don't like this manuka scrub. The river's not too wide, and there's good cover on the other side."
"Surely there's no chance of there being natives so close to the camp?" said Massinger, who thought Warwick a trifle over-cautious this time, often as he had reason to admit his astonishing accuracy in all that concerned woodcraft.
This occasion was not destined to be an exception, for no sooner had they undressed than a volley from across the river showed that natives had been concealed on the opposite bank.
Fortunately, a covering party of twenty men under a lieutenant had been sent with them, who immediately returned fire, and a sharp exchange began. [Pg 255] The sounds of the firing brought up a reinforcement from the 40th and 50th Regiments, under Colonel Havelock, who got to the rear of the concealed natives, the same ti-tree which had screened them serving to hide the troops. At an old earthwork they came suddenly upon them. Captain Jackson of the Forest Rangers and Captain Headley of the Auckland Rifles marched with the supports, eventually driving the Maoris from their position in the earthwork. A hot rally while it lasted, but a Victoria Cross was gained in it by Captain Headley, who, under heavy fire and with his clothes riddled with bullets, carried out a wounded soldier.
"Dโโd nuisance!" said Mr. Slyde, resuming his garments. "Left arms at camp, or we might have had a throw in. Other chaps got all the fun. Oh, here comes Warwick, heavily armed, and no mistake."
It was even so. That resourceful henchman had bolted back to camp and returned with his arms full of their carbines and revolvers.
"And, by Jove! here comes Von Tempsky and part of our company," exclaimed Massinger, unusually excited. "Was there ever such luck?"
No time was lost in joining the Rangers, who had just been ordered to cross the river and clear the scrub.
Without a moment's hesitation, headed by Von Tempsky, they plunged into the stream, and emerging like modern river-gods dripping with the Mangopiko, rushed on the enemy. A desperate hand-to-hand fight ensued. The natives retreated, leaving eight dead, side by side, amid the trampled fern. The Rangers only had three men wounded, including [Pg 256] Mr. Massinger, in the armโhis first title to distinction, as having bled in the cause of his Queen and country.
Like many other small wars and skirmishes, it led to complications. A body of natives came out from the pah at Paterangi to help their people. The skirmishers of the 40th were thrown forward to check them. Five men killed and six wounded of the 40th, while the natives from Paterangi lost over forty killed and thirty wounded.
Mr. Massinger's arm was sore enough that night, though he was loth to admit it.
"'Quite enough to get,' as the soldier remarked in 'Pickwick.' Deuced hot work while it lasted. New style of bathing-party. Have to look up a tree before you sit under it next. Maoris everywhere."
"'All's well that ends well,'" rejoined Massinger, with his arm in a sling. "Lucky that Warwick brought the carbines. I wouldn't have missed that dash across the river for worlds. We also covered the rear effectually, Von Tempsky marching as if he was on parade."
"He wasn't the only one who was cool," said Warwick. "The adjutant-surgeon stopped the bleeding in your arm as steady as if he was in the hospital tent. Bullets pretty thick, too."
The colonel commanding did justice to the merits of all concerned, and when Lieutenant Roland Massinger's name occurred in the list of wounded among the Forest Rangers, under Major Von Tempsky, that gentleman felt himself more than recompensed for any trifling inconvenience he might have undergone.
[Pg 257]
The campaign dragged on till June, the antipodean mid-winter, was reached. Dark were the long cold nights, ceaseless the rain, as the troops and volunteers struggled through forests knee-deep in mud, with creeks to ford and flax swamps to wade through.
An insufficient commissariat tried the constitution of the hardiest. Massinger was now in a position to comprehend thoroughly the fearful odds against which the British regulars fought in the American revolutionary war. There they confronted an enemy whose very children, as soon as they were strong enough to lift the long rifle of the period, were the deadliest of marksmen.
Behind the forest pillars or beneath the fallen logs, what perfect cover had the backwoodsmen, trained to all woodcraft and inured to a hunter's life, where subsistence often depended upon patient stalking and accuracy of aim!
Almost similar conditions prevailed in this guerilla warfare to which England's armaments stood committed. The "mute Maori" glided through the underbrush or amid the fern, himself invisible, until he arose in open order before the astonished troops.
[Pg 258]
he had winded from afar. Reckless in assault as elusive in retreat, the desperate Maori seemed a demoniac foe. Living on fern-root, shell-fish, or kumera, he needed no baggage. The women of the tribe, mingling with the warriors, cooked the necessary food, carried off the wounded, and were not averse to occasional fighting. With ten thousand regular troops, as well as levies of militia and volunteers against them, with powerful tribes of their own race, rus๏ฟฝs and daring as themselves, who fought for the pakeha with a ferocity not exceeded in the bloodiest tribal wars, their position appeared hopeless. Still the stubborn Maori held his own. In staying power, as in other respects, the aboriginal, the Briton of the South, displayed his similarity to his Northern prototype. No such conflict had been waged by an aboriginal race against the arms of civilization since the Iceni and the Brigantes confronted C๏ฟฝsar's legions, fought the world's masters for generation after generation, century after century, till, wearied with the profitless strife and barren occupation, they withdrew, and left the savage inhabitants to a climate of such rigour and gloom that they alone seemed to be its fitting inhabitants. Such for a time appeared to be no improbable finale to the Waikato war. Months, even years, passed without tangible result, without solid advantage to the invaders.
So the seasons wore on, until Massinger began to look upon himself less as a colonist than a soldier. "The reveill๏ฟฝ," the bugle-call, became familiar to him and his companions; for neither Slyde nor Warwick, [Pg 259] more than himself, dreamed of quitting service until the war was over, the play played out.
Both Englishmen had been wounded at different times, but so far not severely. They were commencing to feel the true fatalism of the soldier, convinced that they were invulnerable until their predestined hour. They came to be well known among the forces, with their guide, from whom they were rarely separated. With no personal interest in the matter, with no land to defend, no interest to conserve, they remained simply because they happened to be on the spot, and, coming of fighting blood, had no power to withdraw themselves from the fascination of battle, murder, and sudden death.
Strange as it seemed to Massinger, they had never happened to meet Erena. They heard of her from time to time, but Mannering and his hapu, though always at the front, were either in another direction when they fell across the Ngapuhi contingent, or the Forest Rangers were on outpost duty.
Nor was intelligence wanting of traits of heroism on her part in the numerous skirmishes and sorties of which her father was the leader. Dressed like his Maori allies, with a plume of feathers in his hair, with cartridge-pouch and waistbelt accoutred proper, wherever the fight was fiercest, high above friend and foe rose the tall form of Allister Mannering.
And ever as the battle-waves surged forward, or were rolled back by superior forces, the eager, fearless face, the huntress form of Erena was seen, disdainful of danger as the fabled goddess in the Trojan war. Her chosen band of dusky maidensโrelatives or near friendsโaccepted her guidance, and [Pg 260] surrounded her in every engagement; many a wounded soldier or native ally had they borne from the fray, or succoured when wounded and helpless on the field. Often had they warned outlying settlers when the prowling taua was approaching the unsuspecting family. Nay, it was asserted that had Erena's counsel been taken, her letter regarded, the murder of the missionary, with wife and babes, might have been averted. Sometimes near, sometimes afar, but never absolutely within speech or vision, the situation to Massinger's aroused imagination became tantalizing to such a painful degree that he felt resolved to terminate it without further delay.
It is not to be supposed that he was without occasional tidings from that land of his fathers, from which, as he sometimes considered, he had hastily exiled himself.
For was it not exile, in the fullest sense of the word? ลdipus in Colona was a joke to it. Was this travel-stained, over-wearied, haggard man, who trudged day by day, and often from night to dawn, through darksome woods and endless
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