THE PATEA RANGERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 282, 29 November 1927, Page 6

THE PATEA RANGERS.

(By J.C.)

TALES OF OLD OPOTIKI.

The "Star's" telegraphic account of the anuiversary celebrations in Volkner's Church at Opotiki brought up in my mind many stories of that historic place of worship and of the days when it was the fort and rallying-point of the colonial soldiers and settlers who pioneered the place. Quite a number of our old-time churches were entrenched and stockaded and converted into barrack-rooms and war-stores depots in the 'sixties—two still standing are the churches at Mauku and Pukekohe East —and some beside these were the scenes of skirmishes, but the Church of St. Stephen the Martyr in the heart of the modern town of Opotiki has a story of tragedy and military associations that surpasses them all. Many a township in the South Auckland country, from Hamilton to Tauranga, grew up around the central redoubt built by the militia in 1864. The nucleus of Opotiki town is that tall-spired church fronting the main 6treet, where the Rev. Carl Sylvius preached to his Maori flock for four or five years before the Paimarire fanaticism turned the peaceful settlement of the Whakatohea into an inferno of savagery and murder. The Church Entrenchment. A diagram which I have, showing Volkner's Church in 1865, is a particularly interesting plan because it gives exact details and dimensions of the entrenchment as well as the building around which the military settlement was formed. Major Brassey, an Indian veteran, who had a few months previously successfully defended the Pipiriki post agains't the Hauhaus of the Upper Wanganui, was the officer who commanded the first expedition to Opotiki after the murder of Mr. Volkner, and designed the fortification. The entrenchment surrounding the church consisted of a high earth parapet with a ditch outside it; the figure wag rectangular, with three salients or flanking angles. One of these angle works covered the entrance; it projected several yards on the left-hand of the gateway as one approaches the church; the exact spot is where the footpath runs to-day. At the other end of the enclosure the two projecting angles enfiladed the rear trench and the two sides. One was a rounded work, and within it was mounted a field gun. The trench was dug seven feet deep, and was four feet wide at the bottom, and the total height from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the parapet was twelve feet. On the inner side was a banquette or firing-step four feet six inches below the top of the wall. The ditch was spanned by a drawbridge, which, when hauled up, formed the gate.

This was the little fort, covering an area of about 130 feet by 75 feet, with the tower and tapering spire of the mission church lifting the cross high above the scene of Kereopa's fearful deed, that Brassey and after him Major Stapp made the headquarters of offence and defence against the Hauhau bush men. The stores and camp equipment were placed in the church, and the force camped round about it.

Of the corps that at various times occupied Opotiki, the hardiest and most resourceful were the Patea Rangers, who earlier in the year 1865 had helped to hold Pipiriki against the Hauhaus. I have known several of these good scouts and bush fighters; to-day there is only one survivor to my knowledge, Mr. Richard Foreman. One who died a year or two ago was Captain J. R. Rushton, of Kutarere, Ohiwa. Two typical stalwarts these old comrades, tall and erect, powerful when in their prime, ready for the roughest marching.

The Patea Rangers, about fifty strong, and two companies of Military Settlers from the West Coast, were the first of Brassey's expeditionary force to land at Opotiki, and they were in the forefront of all the skirmishing. They landed in such a hurry to get into the fray that all they wore was shirt and waist-shawl; some were barefooted. They spent a shivering night on the sand dunes, and eight of them suffered from sandy blight for some days afterwards as the result of the pale that send the sand flying in clouds. One of those old-timers told me'of the curious remedy adopted for this eye trouble: "We had our ears pierced, Maori fashion; that was the only cure we had for it." "Turn Out, Rangers!" "We'd had a good deal of campaigning by the time we went to Opotiki," said one of the Rangers, "and the life came easy to us. We prided ourselves on always being on the job, ready for any emergency. Wherever we camped away from the church redoubt a rallying-point was appointed, and whenever the alarm came, 'Turn out, Rangers' we were on the spot in a few moments, belted and armed. We didn't wait to fall in in parade order; time was too precious for that. As soon as the officer in command had a dozen or so around him he dashed off, leaving one man at the rallying-point to give the direction taken." Another competent body was the company of Wanganui Rangers; their commander was Captain Ross, who was killed at the Turuturu-Mokai redoubt, in Taranaki, in 186 S.

At the attack on the pa at Te Tarata (its lines can still be traced, on the right bank of the Waioeka River)," the two companies of Rangers worked up under cover until they were within ten yards of the outer palisade. One of Rushton's comrades, Tom Brown, did not rise for the final melee. When the Rangers went to the spot after the fijrht, they found him lying there dead, a Maori bullet in his head, with his carbine at his shoulder, as if ready to fire.

In the numerous expeditions into the bush in search of Kereopa aud in retaliation for raids, the -Patea Rangers took an active share up to May, 1866, when they returned to the West Coast and were disbanded.