OPEPE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 70, 23 March 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

OPEPE.

STORY OF A SURPRISE PARTY. SURVIVOR'S ENDURANCE. (By J.C.) A correspondent who recently spent a holiday at Taupe, searched out the site of the old Armed Constabulary etockade at Opepe and the scene of the surprise attack on a detachment of colonial eavalry there in 1809, but could obtain very little information about the affair from Taupo residents. He suggests that a "Star" account would be of interest to a great many readers, wiio have seen or heard of Opepe—the spot is close to the main road from Taupo to Napier—but who have learned Dothing about it beyond the vague story that there was once a "massacre" there. "I believe there was a bit of an argument there wan time," said Paddy Mullooley, an East Coast old-timer, passing the scene of the Ruakituri fight. But there was no "argument" at Opepe. The Hauhaus had it all their own way.

A dangerous camp close to a bush, an incompetent officer in charge, no sentries posted, neglect of ordinary military precautions, no attempt at defence when the Maoris attacked —that is the unfortunate story of Opepe. It is not correct to call it a massacre, and the Official History of the New Zealand Wars does not use that word in describing it. Te Kooti's advance-guard found a careless enemy outpost and wiped it out. It was a legitimate military act.

" Safe As In London." It was on June 5, 1869, that Lieut.Colonel St. John, riding from Fort Galatea, on the Eaugitaiki, to 'Taupo, with a small escort of the Bay of Plenty Cavalry, camped at the Opepe bush, a belt of timber about a mile in length, a remnant of the forests that once covered part of the Kaingaroa Plain before the showers of pumice from the volcanoes destroyed them. Mount Tauhara was on the west, and beyond was Taupo. Next morning, St. John went on to Taupo, to meet the friendly Maoris there and select a site for a redoubt. He left most of his escort at Opepe, where there was a deserted Maori village of four or five huts on a small pumice plateau close to the bush. The detachment of Volunteer Cavalry left at Opepe —St. John intended to pick them up on his return to Fort Galatea —numbered fourteen, consisting of a young subaltern, Cornet Angus Smith (afterwards a storekeeper at Opotiki), Sergeant-Major Slattery (an ex-Imperial soldier), and twelve troopers. St. John was asked if the place was safe, as Te Kooti was supposed to be somewhere in the hills to the east, and might descend on Taupo. Hβ told his subordi-

nates that the troopers would be as safe there as they would be in London. A Maori guide, who had come with the escort from Galatea, rode off in the direction of Runanga to the east, and it was believed afterwards that he gave information to the Hauhaus resulting in the raid on the camp, and the killing of nine men. The circumstances of the surprise attack were related to me in 1921 by one of the survivors, the late George Crosswell, of Opotiki, and I also obtained an account of it from one of Tβ Kooti's old warriors and scouts, Peita Kotuku, of Taringamutu. Colonel Roberts and Captain Preece, too, discussed it with me. Both sides therefore are represented in this brief summary of the affair.

Trooper Crosswell had a marvellous escape from death. On June 7 he had been out searching for his strayed horse in the rain, and was drying his uniform at a fire in one of the huts in the afternoon, when Maori voices were heard outside. Getting up from his blankets he was confronted at the door of the whare by two Maoris with Enfield rifles capped and cocked. Some of the men said the Maoris were friendly; there were more of them coming up from the gullies. Crosswell was outside; he was quite naked and unarmed. All the other men went out to see the strangers (Trooper Gill, from Tauranga, knew one of them, but was not aware he had joined Te Kooti). Suddenly all with one accord, in a panic, realising that the natives were Hauhaus, made a rush for the shelter of the bush, which was about a chain away. "Not a single one of us had any arms," said Crosswell. "Our carbines, revolvers and swords were all in the whares." Fire was opened on them, and scores of shots were fired as the defenceless troopers raced for the bush. Only five out of the 14 reached it; the rest were killed.

A Long Trek. Crosswell saw tho bullets "knocking up the earth" about him as he ran. A bullet grazed his left arm, but he hardly felt it. Fortunately it was late in the afternoon, and the Maoris did not pursue them; it was soon dark in the bush. He tore through the bush as fast as he could go, and he fell in with another fugitive, Trooper George Steplienson, of Opotiki. This trooper was fully dressed, but he had no arms, not even a revolver.

After a rest, the two comrades travelled on through the belt of bush and across the tussock country. They kept going northward all night, and found a horse-track across the pumice. All the next clay (June 8) they travelled, and after a terrible journey of 40 miles they at last reached Galatea, and gave the news of the attack to the redoubt commander.

It was a wonderful feat of endurance, that journey of Crosswell's. He was quite naked, and it was very cold.'midwinter weather, but, as -he said, the excitement and the speed at which they were travelling kept him from feeling it as much as he would have done otherwise. His feet suffered most, from the fern and the rough pumice track.

Three more survivors straggled into Fort Galatea long after Crosswell and Steplienson. One of them was Sergeant Dette; he was afterwards for many years superintendent of the Talisman Gold Mine battery at Karangahake. Cornet Angus Smith was one of the survivors; he wandered about for 10 days before a search party found him, greatly exhausted, near the redoubt.

The bodies of the nine men killed were discovered on June B—the day after the attack —by young Thomas Hallett, of Napier (afterwards a well-known runholder). He was riding past with his brother and Mr. Henry Mitchell (father of Mr. Tai Mitchell, of Rotorua), who had just finished the survey of a block of land near Taupo, and were on their way home to Napier via Runauga. The surveyor turned and rode back to Taupo to inform St. John of the fate of his men.

The Hauhaus took the uniforms of the dead and secured all the arms of the detachment —four Calisher and Terry carbines, and the same number of revolvers and Swords, besides the horses and saddles. The ammunition captured was about twenty rounds per carbine. Te Kooti, who presently arrived on his way to South Taupo, was now able to complete the equipment of a small body of cavalry of his own. He had already at various times captured pakeha carbines and swords. The Hauhaus who cut off the detachment were Te Kooti's advance guard, led by the Chief Te Rangi-tahau, who like Peita Kotuku, had escaped from Chatham Island with Te Kooti in the schooner Rifleman in 1868. A grim and ruthless warrior was big, tattooed bushy-whiskered Te Rangitahau; we used to see him in after years at his home at Waipahihi, Lake Taupo. He had a great reputation then as a tohunga of the old Maori religion, as well ae a Hauhau priest.

"A Foolish Bit of Work." Such, in brief compass, is the sorry story of Opepe. "It was a most foolish bit of work altogether," said Crosswell; "no sentries out, no precautions whatever. Our officer, Cornet Smith, was quite lacking in military knowledge, but the chief blame, I think, was St. John's." And the sequel was the sorriest part of it all. Lieutenant-Colonel St. John, perhaps to cover up his own default, recommended Cornet Smith for the New Zealand Cross (which was intended only for deeds of exceptional valour), and, what is more, Cornet Smith got it. This was reported by our military officers of the day as a gross misuse of the decoration, the rarest military honour in the British Empire.

For some years after this episode Opepe was a strategic post on the Taupo frontier. A strong timber stockade was built, and Colonel Roberts (then Major) was in command of the Armed Constabulary there. The stockade has long since disappeared; the existing relics of the past are a hollowed-out tree trunk, like a canoe, which was the watertrough, a well, now dry, and the fenceclin graves of the nine victims of Te Kangi-tahau's surprise party.