KENNEDY'S FARM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 187, 9 August 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

KENNEDY'S FARM.

WAR TRAGEDY AT HOWICK.

MURDER OF THE TRUST CHILDREN.

BOY'S WONDERFUL ESCAPE

(By GERALD L. PEACOCKE.)

In the early stages of the Waikatc war, the pensioner vi lT age of Howick although only 15 miles from Auckland was practically an unprotected outpost of European settlement, for there were many disaffected Maoris beyond the Southern Wairoa Elver and about the Hunua Ranges. In the summer of 186263, when the writer was 11 years old, 1 and my younger brother and sister, with a number of other children, were packed off to friends in town owing to news of an impending raid, there to remain until a stockade could be built in Howick. Very reluctantly we left the exciting environment of what was now practically a military camp, and to our unfeigned delight, in September. 1863, we were allowed to return. Not long afterwards occurred the tragic murder of the two young Trust children at Kennedy's Farm (now Whitford Park),- about six miles from Howick, by a small Maori party. My father, the late Colonel Ponsonby Peacocke, was in military command of the post, and when the building of the stockade, planned by him, had been completed, and the local Militia and Volunteer Force had been efficiently organised, the position of Howick was regarded as fairly secure. My father, however, issued instructions that the wives and children of all settlers between the Wairoa River and Howick should be brought into the settlement for safety. Each night after sunset sentries were posted round the outskirts of the village to give the alarm, if necessary, and. at a given signal all wpmen, children .and non-combatants were to assemble at the stockade. The orderly room was in our backyard, and one summer morning a galloping horse, in a lather of sweat and ridden by a farm labourer, came clattering into the yard. At the sharp command of the orderly to dismount and tell his business, the man, his face white as ashes, almost fell off his horse and staggered to the orderly room door. In answer to the questions of the Adjutant, Captain Pilling, he told his story. The man was a workman employed with another labourer on Kennedy's Farm, which was managed by a farmer named Trust. That morning Trust had been obliged to go into town on business, and had left on the farm the two workmen and his eldest son, Ambrose, a fine boy of 16, and unfortunately with him were his two little brothers, 10 and 12 years old. These little fellows, who had been living with their mother in Howick during the war scare, had been allowed to go out to the farm for a few days to help in the hay-making, as fears of a raid had become somewhat lulled. The labourer told a tragic story of a raid upon Kennedy's Farm by the Maoris, and soon after the second workman came pounding in on a plough horse and confirmed the report. After breakfast, they said, they had gone down to the hay paddock with the two working horses, leaving the three boys in the house. As they were beginning to harness up the barking of the dogs they had left chained up made them look towards the house. They saw several Maoris, with guns in their hands, dodging about the homestead, apparently trying, to keep out of sight behind the gorse-hedge. The men immediately realised the position. The long-expected Maori raid was upon them. They leaped on the backs of the horses and galloped off, flinging off the harness collars as they rode. But the Maoris had seen them, and as they looked back they saw some natives running to head them Dff from the main gate and the road leading to Howick, from whence alone they could procure help. They separated and rode in by different roads. On the strength of their alarming story a party of armed men on foot, and half a dozen members of the newly-formed Cavalry Corps were got together hastily to proceed at once to the farm to take prisoner the Maori war party or drive them from the district. Any hope of saving the young Trust boys was very faint, as the natives had had hours in which to accomplish their work and escape, but there was the chance they might have lingered to loot other homesteads from which the owners had removed their families. So early in the afternoon our small body of men paraded and marched off, with my father riding at their head. The Survivor Found. After a rapid march over very rough roads with their heavy packs the expedition arrived at Kennedy's and found the place deserted. There was then a belt of very thick bush between the cleared farm land's and the Mangaroa Creek. On the far side of this bush, bordered by clumps of high fern, tea-tree and bush lawyer, they found the bodies of the two little boys in a cattle-track, a short distance apart. On examination it was found that the youngsters had been shot clown as they ran, evidently making for the concealing shelter of the bush. Afterwards their pursuers had come up and completed their ruthless work with their tomahawks for the boys' heads were terribly hacked about. Of the elder brother, Ambrose, no trace could be found, either around the spot where the younger boys were found, or at the homestead, where a careful search was made. But just about suneet, as they emerged from the bush on Puriri Bill, the two cavalrymen who had been 3ent back to Howick to report and to procure a conveyance to bring in the bodies of the children, observed at the edge of the bush a solitary figure moving with slow and staggering steps along % cattle track leading to the road which 3loped steeply down to the Mangaroa Bridge. They were off their horses and beside him in a moment, and the poor boy fell fainting into their arms. It was Ambrose Trust, completely exhausted, after making his way through the forest with a smashed right arm, and a, bullet lodged in the muscles of his breast! His performance was a wonderful example of pluck, fortitude.. and endurance—he later told the story of his tragic experiences. When, through the kitchen window, Ambrose became aware of the furtive movements of the Maoris, he at once realised the perils of the situation. He guessed that the raiders were creeping behind hedges and outbuildings, instead if rushing the house, because they feared they might be seen if they crossed the apen paddocks and be.met with a volley from the inmates. So Ambrose reasoned with the quick intelligence of a cool mind in an emergency, and the courage born of responsibility for his young brothers. Their only hope was to escape from the house unseen, reach the stockyard beyond the kitchen garden and slip along behind the high gorse fence* which sloped to the of a gully filled

I with tea-tree intersected by cattlt tracks. From tlie lower end of the gullj Ambrose thought they might cut across to the shelter of the bush and make' theii way to the Mangaroa Creek. Telling the small boys of hia plan and ordering them to keep quiet, Ambrose crept along to the locked front door and peered through a email broken pane. Startled by sudden excited cries from the Maoris he saw them running from al] sides' down the hill to the hay-field where two men on bare-backed' horse* were galloping away. Dash For Safety. Now, if ever, was their chance to get away while the enemy's attention was encased. In two seconds Ambrose was back°m the kitchen, telling the frightened little boys. Jack and Alf to follow him. Through the adjoining dairy, out to the garden, through tall-growing rows of beans they ran, until with beating hearts they reached the high goree fence and then the welcome cover of the tall tea-tree in the gully. Swiftly they made their way to the lower end of the gully in order to make a dash across a corner of the paddock, under the fence, across the road and into the scrub. At a certain point Ambrose ted the way up the steep eide of the gully, their movements concealed by the high teatree, and at last they stood panting within the edge of the sheltered scrub. Here they halted before making their desperate run across the intervening open ground. In the meantime the natives had abandoned their chase of the white men and had broken into the house, whence came excited yells as they began to ransack it. Nowj Ambrose thought, would bea favourable opportunity to make their rush to the shelter of the forest, 200 or 300 vards distant. Taking his brothers each by a hand he pointed out the spot for which he was making and told them to run and keep on running whether they were fired upon or not. As they burst from cover, unfortunately, they startled a small mob of young cattle grazing near, and the stampeded animals made a short rush up the paddock, then stopped and stared with lifted heads at the racing boys. Within a few yards of the fence a bullet sang over their heads, but the small boys dived through the rails, while Ambrose vaulted over. "Keep on running," he shouted, as he once more seized their hands, and more shots came from the pursuers. They were across the road and into the scrub which bordered the bush, but Ambrose suddenly felt the younger boy sagging back on his hand and the tight grip on hid fingers slacken, then the jerk of a dead weight, and the small wrist slipped through hi? grasp. A Serious Wound. "Keep on running!" he yelled to the other boy, and bent over the little fellow who lay on his face in the track motionless. At once he knew with a shock that seemed to stop his heart that Johnnie was dead. Hastily he laid him on a clump of short fern beside the track and ran on after Alf, who had disappeared round a bend. Ambrose never saw him again. When he reached the point where the boy had disappeared round the curve he was nowhere to be seen. The delay in stopping to pick up the dead child had been short, butin that moment one or two of the Maoris were close upon him and he had to race on to help the other boy. "Keep on to the bush, Alf, don't stop," ho shouted, thinking the boy might have cut into one of the cattle tracks. Ambrose now had only a short distance to run to reach the protection and concealment of the tree trunks. One mere shout to Alf to guide him and then he sprang for the shelter of a half-fallen puriri, as he caught sight of a Maori's head above a bunch of fern. He was no doubt loading his old-fashioned firelock and at point-blank range he blazed away at poor Ambrose, and by an unlucky fluke as the latter seized a supplejack vine the heavy bullet struck his arm, snapping the bone and passing on into the flesh of his breast. He dropped behind his sheltering tree abruptly and the Maori, evidently thinking the boy was dead, did not follow up the shot by investigaHm. . Bravely pulling himself together, Ambrose drew a piece of cord from his pocket and wound it tightly round his arm, using one hand and his teeth. Fortunately no artery had been severed or he would never have got through to Mangaroa before complete collapse, but one marvels how he did it under the circumstances. However, I am relating actual facts, and not an imaginary story of incredible adventure. Between Life and Death. All through the hours of his exhausting scramble through tangled supplejacks, fallen branches and underscrub, not knowing from moment to moment when he might hear the pursuing Maoris, and the whole time the haunting picture in his mind of the murdered little b; others he would never see again—the whole thing must have seemed like some horrible dream. Yet, still he kept on. While one of his rescuers galloped into Howick, the other remained beside the half-dead boy, giving him little sips of water aid brandy, though at first he feared sadly that the boy had passed beyond human aid. He did not disturb the injured arm, round which the clothing had stiffened with clotted>.blood, thus checking the hemorrhage. At last to his iclief his mate returned with a light buggy, in which he brought a doc,tor and warm blankets. Poor Ambrose, more dead than alive, was before dark safely in bed in his mother's cottage, and for several weeks he hovered between life and death, most of the time more or less delirious, but medical skill and devoted nursing, in which my mother took a leading part, saved his life, and he lived to grow up into a handsome young giant, ■ a wellknown farmer of the Pakuranga district.