A FIGHT TO A FINISH.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1684, 8 June 1904, Page 7

A FIGHT TO A FINISH.

A STORY OP THE MAORI WAR.

BY OWEN HALL.

[All Rights Reserved.]

CHAPTER XVI.

AT RiA;NGIRIRI PAH.

For; syi instant the flash and the roar, so sudden and so near, seemed to stun -me. The file of men marching between me .and the rifle pits disappeared as if by magic. I could hear the hiss and ' patter of the bullets as they swept past me, - and could even feel the rush of the air divided by them in their flight. It could only have bee® for one or two moments, and then I looked around with something like a clear idea of what it meant. A cloud of dense black smoke had risen from the pits and the stockade, and seemed to be drifting towards us, and between me and the smoke were the shattered fragments of the company that had been marching past so proudly and steadily only a minute bolore.’ The volleys had been destructive at so short a range, and the greater part of the men had fallen either killed or wounded. Some. of these were already struggling to their feet, while many of the others lay still where they had. fallen. A good many of those who hadn't fallen seemed to be wounded, for some of them had dropped their guns, and were trying to stop the bleedmg from wounds more or less severe, and nearly every one was falling back from the place which had proved so deadly. It was, indeed, the only thing they could do, for it seemed as if there was not a single officer left to lead or give any orders, and in another minute a second volley .might ,he looked for to complete the work of. the first.

._ A wounded man—he seemed to be a sergeant by his uniform—had- fallen at my feet, almost upsetting me as he staggered against me by his weight; I stopped, and seizing him by his arms hoisted him on mv shoulders and make the best of my way back towards our own men. The company whose bayonets I had seen when I looked back had luckily been outside the.line of the firing, and Alley had halted as if paralysed for: a minute on the brow of the rising ground, hut by the time I readied them they had fallen into line ready tO open fire. though terribly hampered by -the i survivors of the first: company falling/back.. on them. I had- barely reached them when the order was given to fall hack firing, and I was glad -to get through the line and carry my burden to the rear .is well as I could. Only a few yards further and I met our own men skirmishing towards the creek, and I was glad to get a rest with my. burden. Ach, if zat is nodt ze lucky von again,” was the greeting I got from our captain as he passed me. “It is well zat you shall take him to ze rear. You shaii haff don enuff for von day.” When I had z-ested I obeyed his order, and before I could rejoin our men had been withdrawn, and the affair was over. I was sent-for and questioned by the general himself, as wfcll •as by the commander of the artilcorps which -had begun to come up. I explained that the rifle pits were new to me, and that I had called the attention of the commandez- officer to them but' without result.

We heard that the general blamed himself for the loss of . life, but the officers generally comforted themselves by calling the Maoris -.treacherous savages. . Our captain shrugged liis broad ; shoulders and remarked, “Ach, it vill be zat ve shall alvays be learning somezing.”

The guns came up that evening, and the next morning, and. by the afteinoon- the battery Was at work. There were nearly three thousand troops, including the colonial forces, so it was easy to surround the pah on every side, and. for the first time I heard the roar of a .bombardment that evening. The site of the stockade though- very good in some ways was easy of approach on all sides, and though it stood on the highest ground in the neighbourhood it was not- many feet above the level of the surrounding Land, at least on two sides. Our corps had no special duty except that of watching the edge of tlid forest, in case of the very unlikely attempt: to relieve the garrison by an outside force; so we had little to do but watch what went on.

Dick and I were, standing watching the cannonade just before it ceased for the night, when he said to me suddenly, T wonder if Ropata’s in there, ■Jack?”'- ' - .-,“X suppose so, Dick, #nd • Pincher too,” I said. “I hope he won't get killed.” ..... ■ . • ..

'The luckiest thifig that. could happen taken prisoner,” Dick^said' thoughtfully, ■! but there, Jack.” - / - , T;"looked at Dick. ’“He’d never run away,” I said indlgantly. “I shouldn’t

wonder if he was in those rifle pits today.” “Yes, Jack, if he was inside at all; but. somehow I don’t believe he is.”

“If he is, he’ll be in the thick of the fightipg: when it comes. Hick*.: I wonder how long that’ll be?” ■* '

“Captain Mercer says, the breach will be fit for storming by mid-day tomorrow ; and the Fortieth men say it’ll all be over in an hour after, if they don’t surrender .before that—they say they only hope they won’t.” /They won’t surrender, Dick, till they’ve fought a good deal harder than these fellows think of. A good many of them will lose- -the number of their mess I believe yet /before it’s taken.” “It must be a surprise to them, Jack, to see the way these cannons work; I know it is to me; they've knocked these posts of theirs into chips in a way that must have astonished them a bit.”

“I daresay. I expect they’ll build the next one a good deal stronger. These posts weren t thicx eriougn by a good deal; but for all that the stumps won’t be any too easy to get over, Dick.

“We’ll have a good chance to see to-morrow, if the general does as he promised the captain he would. The Fortieth men of course claim to be in the advance, as they suffered so much. The general has promised them that, but we’re to' support the attack; so if they don't carry it at a rush we’ll have a chance.”

I went to sleep thinking of Ropata and Pincher. I know I dreamed of storming the breach and seeing Pincher carry old Mata off in his mouth just as she was going to be killed. She turned and bit me when I tried to help him, and then Pincher dropped her and came to lick the place, and the general saw him and made him an officer on the spot.. I was just admiring Pincher in his new uniform when the bugles sounded, and I awoke to find it daylight, and to remember that all was to be "ready for storming by noon. In a few minutes the roar of the cannons began again, and as the morning went on it was told round the camps that there was no mistake —the breach would .be ready. Our captain was sent for, and just before dinner-time he came hack in high spirits. The general had paid our men high compliments and assigned us the duty of supporting the .stormers at the main breach. As soon as we had dinner we were to he relieved and march round to the opposite side of the pah ready to take our place. The news was- received with cheers, and dinner was disposed of in double quick time. As we marched round to our new position I couldn’t keep my eyes off the place where the explosion of shells and the crash of splintered logs still kept up a continual din. I was trying to settle in my own mind whereabouts in the pah the huts were, and wondering a little liow it was that some of those'shells hadn’t set them on fire. I had a kind of fancy that perhaps these huts mights have something to do with the defence, and it was annoying that I couldn’t manage to satisfy myself just where they stood. It didn’t take us long to get to the other side and take up our position. I hadn’t seen that side since the bombardment began, and like all our men l looked with eager interest to see what the breach was like. It seemed to be twenty or twenty-five feet wide, and the palisade had certainly been smashed to pieces very effectually for that distance. Even the embankment, especially near the middle, seemed to have been torn to pieces, and almost' levelled in places, though the greater part of the earthwork had stood better than the posts, perhaps because it was supported by the stumps Of the posts underground. Wo had plenty of time to look at it, for the cannonade went on for nearly an hour after we arrived. Dick was standing just behind me, looking through liis glass at the effect of the shots, when an officer in a red coat passed us, returning from some message he had been delivering for his colonel.

‘‘Well, Leslie,” he said, as h,e passed, “all ready, I see. I don’t think we’ll leaye you liiucli to do by the time your turn comes.”

“I hope not, I’m sure,” Dick answered pleasantly. “We don’t want to lose a man of ours that isn’t needed.”

1 “Oh, that’s all- right, of course. We don’t mind, taking a hard job like this off your hands. 'Mercer’s guns seem to have made it pretty plain sailing, though. Those fellows must he fools not to surrender now. They haven’t a chance, and otir men will he pretty savage, I fancy.” “Yes, if there’s nothing behind, though, if you’re in it I’d advise you to look out for the jagged stumps. You’ll find some of them pretty rough.” The officer laughed and walked on, I looked over my shoulder at Dick. “I say, Dick,” I said, “you’re about fight, I think, I’ve been puzzling myself about these huts. I believe there must be some sort of inside fence round them, or the shells would . have set them on fire. I suppose you can’t see anything like that ?” . pick looked carefully for a minute or two. “No, Jack,” he said at last, T can’t; Tbut very likely you’re right. I daresay they’ve got rifle pits too, b.ut:

it’s no use warning these officers; they think they know all about it, and it’s like our impudence to give them hints” In the meantime the storming party had been drawn up, with supporting files of the regiment behind them. Our orders were to advance on the flanks, I and to keep up a heavy rifle fire on the breach and the stockade near it, as long as we could without risking our own men who were advancing. When the stormers entered the breach we were to fall in, ready to advance in support in case they seemed to find a difficulty in carrying the position. Our men fell into two flanking parties, one com- J manded by the captain, and the other,! on the left, by Dick. I was in Dick’s! division. At last the word was given, ] and we advanced on the flanks, while the cannons behind us threw’ the last shells into the breach. I had no time to look behind me, but my blood seem- ! ed to leap through my veins as I heard the bugles sound the advance, and £ knew that the advance of the storming party had begun. We were firing as we had been ordered, hut it was impossible to see anything at which to aim; as for seeing an enemy, there hadn’t been a shot fired from this front of the stockade since the cannonade (began the day before. I It might have been deserted for anything that showed, though of course we J all knew better than that now. It ; seemed long to wait, bur at last the j storming party passed between . our j two wings, and after one last discharge 1 the cannonading stopped. We contin- ( ued to pour a fire of rifle bullets on the | spot where the smoke and dust of the j bursting shells gradually- cleared away, I till the first redcoats that had crossed | the creek began to show on the top of j the hank in front of the breach; then j the word was given to stop firing and close up.

The eyes of every man of us, and I suppose of each mail in the little army, from the General to the drummer hoy, were fixed on the spot where the gaping breach, showing splintered timbers and heaps of scattered earth, waited, grim and silent, for the stormers. There was a wild hurrah as the stormers dashed across the furrowed strip of ground, and hurled themselves headlong at the- breach. They disappeared into the ditch, which was, of course, invisible from the lower ground where we were standing in breathles? expectation waiting for them to appear on the other side. My account of the depth of the ditch had made them dispense, with ladders, and trust to the rubbish heaps that must have fallen in

to make it passable. I need hardly say I watched with double anxiety to see whether I had been right. Yes. First one or two, then a dozen, then a score of redcoats clambered up the tattered looking bank into the gaping breach. In a moment more the * whole party of stormers were swarming like red ants through the opening, and between the shattered posts of the stockade, and not a shot had been fired not a sound had come from the defenders. What did it mean?

The stormers scrambled over and disappeared; the supporting column followed with a cheer of triumph up the slope; there was a sudden roar of musketry, and a heavy cloud rose from the stockade. I had been waiting eagerly for something, and yet when it came I jumped. Next moment Dick shouted —“'Now, men, close up and follow me.”

That was where Dick had the best of it; he made up liis mind what to do like a shot—and he did it. That roar ! old him we should be needed, and he didn’t wait to see.

The supporting column heard it, too, and with a second, and even • wilder, hurrah, they dashed at the ditch, and clambered up the bank to help their oomrades. It was time. Inside the

pah, under that black cloud, volley after volley was being fired, and already we could see the heads of some of the stormers in the breach, driven back by the deadly fire to which they found themselves exposed at close quarters. The arrival of the supports encouraged them, and once more the flood of men poured through the breach, and disappeared into the smoke. We had reached the slope to the creek, and Dick’s voice rang out again, clear and a decisive —“Now, men.; altogether ! Have your rifles ready”—as we plunged down the slope. We had reached the stream, now covered with a causeway of branches and ferns, and I was just leaping across at Dick’s back when the noise of firing and shouts, that had seemed to grow more confused as we descended into the hollow, was suddenly overpowered by a yelr which rose wild and fierce above. every other sound. Both. Dick and I knew it well; it was the battle yell of the Maori warriors when they charged. Dick repeated his cry—“ Now, men; altogether! follow me,” —as he sprang up the slopo from the creek, and every man of us bounded after him. .1 glanced behind me as I reached the top, just in time to see the other half of our men under the captain beginning the descent—hurrah ; we were first

in the field. Wtop, and before us, notT thirty yards away, Was the ditch and the breach and palisade beyond. The ground, between us and the breach was furrowed, and torn, and tossed hither and thither, as if it had been done by a giant plough. The ferns and scrub that had covered it had been mown down and stripped off, while holes and trenches had been hollowed out in all directions by the bursting shells. We ran and leaped and stumbled forward over a thousand obstacles 'towards the ridge of furrowed clay and shattered logs before us, from behind which came an- uproar that baffled description. It would no longer have been possible to hear an oi'der if one had been given, hut Dick pointed onward with the revolver Which he held in his outstretched hand, and dashed forward at headlong speed." It took only a second or two, and yet before we had reached the ditch the tide of shattered forces had broken over the breach and begun to pour, into the ditch, a shattered mass, of flying men —stumbling, falling, clutching blindly at anything for support—they rolled by dozens down tlie bank into .the 3 ditch. By a tremendous effort Dick shouted so as to be heard by those of us who were near — “This way, men. This way 1” pointing to one corner of the gaping chasm before us, and himself leading the way, so as to get clear of the irresistible “stream of panic-struck men who were pouring through it. o It was the only thing to he done at

the moment, and it was more than fortunate Dick had the presence of mind "to do it. In another instant we had ■"/ leaped into * the cumbered ditch half full of heaps of earth and shattered timber, and not a* few bodies of redcoated men who had rolled dead or desperately wounded to tile bottom. I put my foot on a broken log that lay across the ditch half way to the bottom, and next moment I had seized a post broken off at half its height on the top of the bank and had drawn myself up—first of alb the Rangers to reach" the top. The sight within reminded me of the Mauku fight, only here there was no room, and the order that had saved us then was wanting. It had been a surprise, and a glance was enough to show how it had been done. Both Dick’s fancy and mine had been right; there was a line of rifle pits in almost a semi-circle facing the breach, and, lust / behind it, though without either a bank or ditch, a second enclosure built of upright saplings sunk in the ground, and standing seven or eight feet high. The stormers, rushing through the breach, had fallen into a death trap; fired on from the rifle pits and from the stockade behind: driven back bewildered by the withering fire, they had been reinforced by the supporting column, and had attempted to rush the rifle pits with the bayonet. It was ; then, when they had been thrown into confusion by the fire from behind the light stockade, that the warriors had > charged, through openings left at each end of the inner barricade. This charge, as furious as it was unexpected, had created a second panic worse than the first, and in spite of having their bayonets, which, however, were comparatively useless in tne cfowd, the soldiers had broken and rim. It was in vain that the officers threw themselves in front and opposed their swords to the onset, of the Natives. The mere weight of the charge did much, and the crowd and utter confusion made defence almost hopeless for the moment against the clubs and long-handled tomahawks of .the Maori warriors. The struggle was still going on, but "it was evidently impossible to re-form ■. the shattered _ lines of the soldiers as ’ long as they were being pressed on both - flanks by the yelling savages. I had no orders what to do, but I saw it would „ be impossible, and if possible useless, • to force a way tlii’ough the breach. The only it struck me like a lightning flash, to take a hand would be to fire between the posts of the outer palisade * where I was. As the thought struck -me I dropped on one knee, and pushing the barrel of my rifle through the crevice, perhaps three inches wide, between two posts, fired at a Maori who Was flourishing a tomahawk over the head of an officer already beaten on one knee and bravely defending himself with his sword. He was not five yards away, - and as I fired he staggered back 1

and fell. At tlie same moment a voice at my ear —Dick’s voice, I knew —ex- " claimed: “Bl’avOj, Jack; that’s the idea.” - .

- /In a minute more our men had taken the hint and lined themselves along the top of the embankment, and were firing between the posts or the palisade. The idea was quickly taken up by our comrades on the other side of the breach as they came up, and within a very few minutes the warriors drew off, leaving a good many of their number to swell the heaps of killed and wounded"’men who lay in all directions in the / fatal enclosure'. Our support had at laast saved a total rout of the assailants, and enabled them so far to recover that they halted and re-formed. They might even have attempted it again if orders to retreat'had not readied them : as ! fire; was re-opened from the inner barricade. iWe stayed-whore we were until we

.were 'WitKdrawiit by thegeneraTs oi'der to enable the artillery fire once more to re-operi so as to destroy the second line of defence, and ensure the success of another attack.

We fell back to our old position along the edge of the forest, and later in the day we were drawn in closer to the pah so as to complete . the cordon of troops that surrounded it now at comparatively close quarters. Our captain had been sent for by tlie general, and the movement was carried out by Dick in his absence.

It was almost dark when the captain got back, and we were sitting beside one of our camp fires charting as he came up.

“Ach, Leslie, 11 he exclaimed, “Here zen it is zat you vill be; here also is your gou-sin, him zat vill haff so much of ze luck all ze time. Well, Ido gongratulate you: you haff don veil, and you vill deserve, all zat you vill get of ze praise. I haff now toldt ze general, and you vill now go to him at vonce zat he may himself tell you vot vill be his opinion.” It might have been the light from the fire that deceived me, but I thought Dick’s face flushed as he looked at me.

“Ach, no,” the captain exclaimed with one of his explosive laughs. £ T vouid not be toldt to send ze lucky von but only you—though, indeedt-, it vill be true zat he, too, will deserve of ze praise.” , , We gave Dick a cheer as he left us, the word having gone round that he had been sent for to be thanked by the general. It was nearly two hours later when he came back: I was still sitting on the stump of a tree, though nearly all the rest had gone to sleep. He came quietly behind me and laid his hand on my shoulder. “Well, Dick/’ I exclaimed, as I sprang to my feet and faced him —-‘All right, isn't it? What did the old fellow say to you?” ‘A great deal more .than I deserved 'Jack; but I told him it was you that should have been thanked.”

“Nonsense, Dick. I hope you didn’t go and tell him a yarn like that.” “1 told him just what I thought, Jack: I only hope he will do something.” « Next morning, after the cannonade had been resumed for two hours more, tlie remnant of tlie Maoris surrendered. There were a hundred and eighty-three left, but R-opata wasn’t among them. Dick went and examined the long rows of dead bodies that were laid out in the pah ready for burial, but he wasn’t among them. Mata wasn’t there, nor Fincher either. Dick had been right again.

(To be Continued.)