THE TITI FIGHT.

Franklin Times, Volume XIX, Issue 39, 5 April 1929, Page 5

THE TITI FIGHT.

ONE SURVIVOR LEFT.

WELLINGTON VETERAN TELLS HIS

STORY

It is a far cry back to the engagement at the Titi farm on October 23rd, 1863, and it is somewhat surprising to find that an actor in the events of that day, now nearly sixty-six years ago,

is not only alive, but particularly lively, and delighted to have an opportunity to talk over the incidents that seem as fresh in his mind as if they had occurred only yesterday. On a recent visit to Wellington the writer had the pleasure of a couple of hours chat with the old veteran.

Mr James Adam Capper, lives in Hiropi Street, Lyall Bay, Wellington. J Hiropi is not a genuine Maori name, as j it pretends to be, but merely meant to ■ deceive. Like our own Pukeoware it is a not too brilliant effort to give a native appearance to an English surname. It might just as well have been called Hislop Street, and the other place Ward's Hill. . In .. a comfortable house in Hiropi street lives Mr Capper, and if ever there was a jolly old veteran he is the man. It is true he says that his knees give him trouble, so that he can walk neither so far nor so fast as he could when the world was younger, but as he was born on January 15t,1841, that is not so much to be wondered at. And he complains his right hand will; not serve him to -write with in comfort, but as he has had the grit to learn the use of a type-writer he can still correspond with his friends. Cicero learned to play the fiddle at seventy- j five, and it was thought remarkable. ; Mr Capper started ten years later to learn to play the type-writer. '

Born in Invernesshire. more than eighty-eight years ago, Capper says he was a bit of a handful, and rather more than his wodowed mother could manage. So into the navy he went in 1856. and his gun-brig was shortly after sent to the New Zealand station. He arrived at Port Nicholson, as Wellington Harbour was then called, in 1857, and there got his first glimpse of the country which was to be his future home.

Out of the Navy but into the Army. He was back again in 1863, and at the. beginning of the Waikato War, he managed to enlist in the first Waikato Regiment of Militia. This was in the month of June. The regiment shortly after went into camp at Drui'yWhile it was there news came down of the enemy being in the Mauku district. Two men of the Forest Rifles, James Dromgool and Felix McGuire, were fired ■' on when catching their horses in a bush clearing, preparatory to carrying dispatches to Drury. Dromgool was killed, but McGuire escaped and lived to become a member of Parliament for Taranaki.

To stiffen up the local volunteers, Captain St. John's company of the Ist Waikato's left Drury early in the morning of September 14th., twenty-five men under Lieutenant Percival who Capper describes as a fine and gallant young officer, crossing the Karaka to the Lower Mauku stockade. The rest of the company travelled along the Great South Road, and formed the first relief that reached the East Pukekohe Church when it was attacked that morning.

Shortly after, ten men of the Waikatos, among who was Capper, were drafted to the Mauku Church, which was held by the Mauku Forest Rifles.

What Became of the Gooseberries?

On the. morning of October 23rd., 1803, Mr Capper and a comrade' made a discovery. About a hundred yards from the east end of the church, on the farm of the late Mr Joseph Crispe, they found a garden containing gooseberry bushes, and as the fruit looked forward enough for cooking they set to work to fill their handkerchiefs. While thus engaged they heard a rifle fired at the church, and thinking it was attacked by natives raced for the shelter of the stockade. The were just in time to join the garrison, which was sallying forth to join Percival and the men from the Lower Stockade, who were hotly engaged with the Maoris rather more than a mile away. It was a breathless race across the. Mauku stream, and up the long slope, but they effected a junction with their comrades who were very closely pressed indeed.

There is no need to tell the story of the fight, which has been told in the Times more than once. According to Capper the local volunteers did not show very much steadiness, and when it came to a question of hand to hand fighting, bayonet against longhandled tomahawk, most of them took to their heels, and the shelter of the

bush. There were however, some notable exceptions. Both officers were killed in the melee and the command devolved on Corporal Michael Power, whom Capper describes as a fine soldier. But he had his head split by a tomahawk at the moment that his bayonet was fast in an enemy's chest, and the militia were left without a leader. The fight then seems to have turned into a rout, every man making his way back to the stockade as rapidly as he could. The militia left eight of their number dead behind them, and the volunteers one. Ten men had been left in the church as guard. They signalised the occasion by broaching the rum rations and getting most gloriously intoxicated. For Ihis the ring-leader. Roderick MacKenzie. got three months imprisonment and was dismissed from Ihe serivce.

A Night of Alarm.

All the "stragglers managed to get back to the church before dark. As the sun was setting one of the sentries saw a glint of steel waved on the bank of the Mauku. stream, just about where the railway now. crosses it. Some Of the- men going to investigate found it. was one of the Waikatos named Johnston, who had been shot through the lung, and had just been able to crawl as far as the stream. He was unable to call out, and-only had suffi- , cient strength to wave his bayonet to j attract attention. He lay in the

church all night in a comatose state, and when a surgeon saw him in the morning he said he had only an hour or two to live. Johnston was a popular man in the company, and his comrades arranged ■to each, give a day's pay to provide him with a tombstone, but they were .never called upon to pay up, for he miraculously recovered, , and did not require a tombstone for another half-century. It was a night of discomfort and anxiety inside the stockade. The Maoris were known to number several hundred, and an attack w T as feared at any moment. Sentries were posted all round the church fifty yards or so out, and Capper was one of them. His position appears to have been about where the wicket gate of the churchvard now is. He said he passed a very nervous and jump?/ time, with ears strained to catch every sound, and expecting to. hear at any moment the guns and yells of the natives. He did not know that they had had all they' wanted, and their chief anxiety 'was to make litters for their dead and wounded and get back to their canoes on the Waikato as quickly as ever they could.

Reinforcements. About mid-night Capper heard a sound in the distance. A few anxious moments and these had resolved themselves into the. tramp of men marching. It was a company of his own regiment, tardily sent up from Drury hours after Mr Heywood Crispe had galloped there to ask for reinforcements. All anxiety was now over, and at daylight a squadron of Nixon's cavalry arrived and rode up to the battle-field.

Word, sent probably from Drury, had gone up to the Alexandra Redoubt at Tuakau, and a party of Jackson's Forest Rangers treked through the rough country to Rangipokia, on the Waikato's bank, hoping to take the enemy in the rear. The Maoris had embarked when they arrived, but they would have shot all the occupants of one canoe had no!, one of the men accidentally let off his carbine and given the enemy notice of their kind intentions.

For a while things were very lively in the neighbourhood of the church, seven hundred men being encamped around it. But they were soon withdrawn to join Cameron's advance up the Waikato. But Capper and a small party of the Waikatos, with three or four of Nixon's horse, were left to act as auxilaries to the volunteer garrison. Capper found it a slow and dull time, but had ',o spend a month or two at it. But after the fall of Rangiriri pa he managed to get up to the front again. He joined the transport corps, and got a shilling a day extra for it. Only once more did he get into touch with the enemy, however, and that was at Orakau. in Apri', 1564, when he drove his bullock dray up to the lines to cart out the wounded. A bullet struck one of the team on the horn. "I believe he's shaking his'head to this'day, poor chap," said Capper.

The Waikato campaign ended Capper's military career, and he turned his attention to other matters. His last jcb was a spell of thirty-five years as messenger in the House of Representatives. It was while there that He proved the source of inspiration for Thomas Bracken's poem, "McGillvray's dream." Farquhar McGillvray was a young Highlander in the Waikatos. For three nights prior to the engagement he told his comrades he dreamed he was lying dead on the hill a mile to the west "of the church, and the morning after the fight that is where they found his body. It was natural that this should make a profound impression on his comrades, and years after Capper told the tale to Thomas Bracken, who was a member of the House, and the result was the wellknown poem.

And at this point we may leave the veteran for the present. He came up to have a look at the old church about fifteen years ago, and was greatly interested in the change and improvement of the district. He also appears to have met some of the descendants of his old Mauku friends, and was delighted to have a chat over old times with them, though sorry not to find any of those he knew still living in the vicinity.